A Different Road Taken
by Redrover117
Summary: In 1928 an alien artefact was discovered in Egypt and activated for the first time a few years later. In one reality Doctor Littlefield stepped through and was stranded on the planet Heliopolis for decades. In this reality he arrived on another planet entirely, one that house an Ancient Repository.
1. Stargate

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter1: Stargate

 **January 1945  
** **Sol System  
** **Earth  
** **Washington DC**

Doctor Ernest Littlefield must have been insane, there was no other explanation, he had to be completely mad to have even contemplated doing this never mind actually going through with it. As a scientist he had spent his time working with Professor Paul Langford on the man's discovery. Back in 1928 Professor Langford had led an expedition to Egypt, specifically Giza. It was there that he unearthed an ancient artefact composed of material that they had yet to identify. The object was transported to the United States by freighter in 1939 to stop the Nazis from getting their hands on it. It was then that they began experimenting on it, thinking it was a weapon that they could use in the Second World War against the Nazis.

Finally after many failures it happened…

After pumping power into it and spinning the wheel within the ring, the device activated. Seven chevrons glowed gold as the last of then was locked into place and a vortex of blue energy erupted from its center. It retracted and settled down creating what seemed like a pool of water standing up in the center of the ring. After it shut itself down and the 'water' disappeared they tried again using the same combination. This time when it activated he volunteered to go through it. He wore a diving suit with the oxygen tube attached and approached the ring.

It was now or never…

He took a deep breath before stepping into the 'water' and found himself coming out the other side. Only instead of the back of the warehouse he was met by the sight of an almost empty room. There was nothing here, or at least nothing that he could see. He was about to head back when the ring shut down behind him effectively cutting off the tube. He could only stare at it as the realisation hit him that he couldn't get back. He had to find a way to return so he looked around the mostly empty room before walking over to the pedestal. It was decorated in symbols matching the ones on the ring and in its center was an orange Jewel. Some kind of artefact that could activate the ring perhaps?

Hopefully...

The only other thing was the circle of writing on the floor in the center of the room. Slowly approaching it, he took off his helmet and looked down. Suddenly an object of some kind emerged from the wall nearly making his jump in surprise. What was that? It looked alien whatever it was, definitely nothing designed by humans. Slowly, hesitantly he approached the device and examined it. It looked like a hole with a light coming out of it. With a deep breath he looked into the hole and suddenly found his head locked in place.

He screamed as the light hit his eyes and he tried to pull himself free. After several long agonising seconds he was release and he slumped to the floor. What just happened? Never mind that he needed to get back, and get back now. He shakily pushed himself back to his feet and moved over to the pedestal. He stared at it for a moment before he felt his hand move on its own, pressing seven symbols on the pedestal. Finally he pressed the center Jewel and the ring—Astria Porta—activated. With thinking he threw himself through the vortex—wormhole and dropped down onto the stone floor of the facility.

The last thing he saw before everything went dark was Langford running over to him...

Professor Paul Langford watched from his seat on the other side of the room as his daughter sat at his colleague's bedside. It surprised everyone when Ernest returned from beyond the ring and had only recently regained consciousness. The first thing he asked for when he awoke was a map and a pen.

Then he started drawing…

"He's asking for digging equipment," Ed Taylor spoke up from behind him. "And transport to Antarctica."

"Antarctica?" Paul mused. He had spoken with Ernest earlier when he explained what he saw on the other side of the 'Stargate' and whatever it was he encountered had clearly altered his mind in some way if the way he was acting was any indication. Ernest seemed to be desperate and scared as he was frantically drawing pictures not only on the map but also on some paper he had been given.

They were gate addresses…

"What do you think?" Ed asked the question.

"What do I think?" Langford asked back. "I think we should give him what he wants."

He could only imagine what they would discover…

It was cold, that was Catherine's first thought as she stepped out of the makeshift tent that she had been staying in while they worked. It was a lot different than Egypt and the United States with how hot it was in both countries this time of year. It had been three days since Ernest had secretly gone through the artefact her father found in Egypt and returned. Since then she'd been there as he seemed to lose more and more of himself. No, that wasn't an accurate description. It was more like his mind was being overwhelmed, as if he suddenly had an insane amount of knowledge dumped into his head all at once. He'd even started to speak another language, one that she recognized as Latin.

Now here they were in the middle of Antarctica where she was standing in front of a familiar-looking artefact. Her father was calling it a 'Stargate,' some kind of ancient and very advanced piece of technology. They'd started digging the moment they arrived and it wasn't long before they discovered a second Stargate buried in an ice cavern half a mile down. It also came with a pedestal that seemingly controlled it, or at least that's what Ernest had told her before he lost the ability to speak English.

They continued digging…

"We found something!"

She heard the yell from one of the diggers and ran over to the hole in the ground. The tunnel was a mile down at an angle so that it could be walked. Her father and the rest of his expedition was already ahead, following Ernest into the abyss. Catherine followed, heading downing into the darkness, slowly and carefully so that she didn't slip.

Eventually they reached it…

"What is this place?" Ed asked the question. They'd emerged into what seemed to be a strangely designed corridor, something that was clearly not a natural formation. Ernest didn't answer, he simply walked down the corridor and stepped into the chamber beyond. In the center of it was a slightly raised platform with a chair in the middle.

"Ernest?" Catherine whispered as she watched him. He approached the edge of a platform and knelt down. He placed his hand over the small circle on the floor and it suddenly started to rise up revealing a dark crystal of some kind. He removed it slowly and then reached into his bag. He pulled out another crystal which looked identical to the one he had removed from the platform only this one was glowing a mirage of colours.

"A power source?" Langford mused.

"Potentia," Ernest spoke as he placed the glowing crystal in the raised circle and pushed it down into the platform. The platform lit up blue as he rose to his feet and sat down in the chair. "Terra Atlantus," he said as the back of the chair fell backwards a bit and images of the Earth appeared in the air above it.

"Terra is Earth," Catherine mused. "Atlantus? As in the Lost City of Atlantis?"

It was a myth, a legend, a mystical city far more advanced than any civilization currently on Earth. Supposedly it existed millennia ago and had been destroyed in a single night, buried beneath the sea. Catherine didn't know what to think but right now she had more pressing concerns, like the fact that Ernest suddenly started coughing. She rushed over to him as he sat up and tried to stand. She helped him up and he pointed towards the small chamber down the hall.

"Catherine…" her father trailed off as he watched them.

She knew, damn it she knew damn well that he wasn't going to make it. All she could do was help him and be there for him until the end. Catherine helped him into the chamber and he smiled weakly at her as she stepped back. The next thing she knew he was suddenly behind some kind of glass-like barrier covering the chamber. A tear fell down the side of her cheek when she realised what had happened.

He was frozen…

 **January 1966  
** **Sol System  
** **Asteroid Belt  
** **Guardian Basestar**

They had been travelling for three years now, jumping from one star system to the next, searching for the last colony of humans, Earth. Two thousand years ago humans from Kobol had settled down and colonised the Cyrannus System. After fighting between themselves for centuries they eventually created a machine to fight their wars for them. However the machines—the Cylons—rebelled and fought a twelve year long war against their human creators. Eventually a stalemate was reached and both sides signed an armistice. A single space station was built on the border of Colonial and Cylon space though only the Colonials had ever sent delegations there to meet. Towards the end of the war however something changed among the Cylons, something neither side expected.

The Cylon Empire split in two…

After the war ended the Cylons left the galaxy and travelled to another millions of light years away, wishing to leave the Colonials to whatever fate the universe had planned for them. Once they arrived in the neighbouring galaxy, the bulk of the artificial intelligence platforms that made up the Cylon Empire wished to search for a world to call their own. The rest of the platforms were a small splinter group that separated from the rest when their experiments on the humans they had captured during the war gave birth to the creature known as a hybrid. It spoke to the rest of the platforms, telling them about what it saw and continued to see.

As a being that was both human and machine it was in a constant state of 'dying' as its consciousness seemed to influence the Cylon platforms around it. It saw 'Ascension,' a state of being that existed on a higher plane of existence than they knew. After deciding that with the war over and the rest of the Cylons leaving they needed a new supply of humans to experiment on, they started the long search for Earth, the mythical thirteenth colony of Kobol.

Before they left their home galaxy they found Kobol, the ancestral homeworld of Humanity and from there they were able to point the direct of Earth which was why they selected this galaxy to travel to. After three years the splinter group Cylons had finally found it, a single blue planet with a moon orbiting a bright yellow star. They'd been picking up wireless waves from over a dozen light years away and upon getting closer it was rather easy to find. Deep within the bowls of the only Cylon Type-II Basestar in the fleet lay the Proto-Hybrid as it stared out at the readings it was receiving. Earth seemed to be rather primitive compared to the rest of the Colonies.

Perfect for harvesting…

The Hybrid's DRADIS pinged as it detected another satellite being launched into orbit from the surface. They would have to be destroyed first and then the military installations on the ground. Priority went to missile silos first and then bases. Once they were eliminated they would launch nukes at the largest cities and then send in ground troops. These humans were so primitive that they shouldn't put up much resistance once the Basestars started bombing them from orbit.

 _Alteran_

The Hybrid's consciousness faded out for a second as it made the calculations for the jump. After several seconds to charge up the FTL Drive the Guardian Basestar and its escorts disappeared, reappearing in orbit above Earth.

 _Tau'ri_

Another flash, this time showing it images of things that hadn't happened, things that could happen and things that could never be allowed to happen. He saw a fleet of ships more powerful than anything the Cylons or Colonials had ever seen, thousands of worlds, human worlds, alien worlds, great empires of the past, present and future.

 _Fifth Race_

No...

That couldn't be allowed to happen...

Without another thought the Hybrid quickly armed the two dozen nuclear missiles it housed and targeted the densest populated cities that its raiders had spotted earlier. As one all twenty-four missiles launched from the assembled ships' dorsal hatches and descended upon the world below. It could already hear the wireless chatter from the humans as they tried to have their primitive aircraft shoot the missiles down in vain. It wasn't long before they each hit their targets and detonated, each one carrying a thirty-megaton warhead. Millions died in a matter of seconds, disappearing in nuclear fire.

They would all burn...

Soon after the bombs fell the Hybrid felt a shift as the DRADIS detected a swarm of what it assumed to be missiles of some kind being launched from the surface. Raiders launched a second later and moved to intercept them only ton be surprised when the 'missiles' dodged around the rounds fired at them along with the raiders that tried to sacrifice themselves. The missiles soon reached their target and started to tear through the Guardian Basestars.

The Hybrid barely had time to calculate the coordinates and activating the jump drive. In a flash of light what was left of the Basestar vanished before it was destroyed only to reappear inside the planet's atmosphere. It fell the moment it appeared and crashed straight down onto the snow-covered ground. The lower hull buckled from the force of the impact as the Hybrid screamed and felt as half the Basestar's systems fried. The other Basestars weren't so lucky as to have escaped the sudden counterattack. The five escort Type-I Basestars simply shattered into scattering debris as streams of orange missile-like objects slammed into them and detonated. After a few seconds the Hybrid returned to normal and took stock of what its DRADIS was telling it. They'd crashed near the middle of the planet's northern pole though thankfully there was barely any human presence.

The war had begun…

 **March 1969  
** **Sol System  
** **Earth  
** **Antarctica**

Three years had passed, three years of hell on Earth, three years since they discovered that they weren't alone in the universe. They attacked without warning, slaughtering millions, and then the machines came. Marching out from the frozen wastelands of Antarctica were thousands of humanoid robots carrying weapons far deadlier than anything the current militaries of the world had developed. At first he'd thought it was the Russians but that was before the first wave of machines attacked. They struck everywhere south of the equator in the first month, slaughtering every human they found. By the second month various nations had been able to organise a resistance, one that was able to at least stall the advance. Bullets bounced off their armour but the newly developed explosive rounds worked better, but even they took two or three rounds just to put down just one of the robots. It was only then that they started to push the invaders back all the way to their ship.

The ship before him now...

Major George Hammond was breathing heavy as he ran for cover with his rifle shouldered, firing high explosive rounds at the robot trying to stand up on the snow. Three shots rang out across the frozen battlefield as the rounds detonated against the side of its head, dropping it. The fighting was getting more intense with each passing second as armies from all over the world were swarming the robot's position, throwing everything they had at them. George was with one of be lead divisions air forces tasked with assaulting the enemy lines and aiding ground forces in making it inside the robot's spaceship. They'd been ambushed by enemy planes and wiped out leaving only George as the sole survive for ejecting when he did. He'd fought off seven robots on the ground by himself before that last one nearly got him.

All he could do now was keep moving forward...

"Almost there..." he breathed out as he kept walking. Eventually he made his way to the ship's hull and found an open hatch guarded by a pair of machines. He could take out one if he surprised it but the second would kill him before he could put that one down too. "It's never easy," he gritted out as he hid behind a frozen hill overlooking the hatch.

He had one grenade left and that was it. Making a quick decision he threw the grenade towards the two guards and covered his ears. A resounding thud echoed as the grenade exploded, destroying the two robots. He sighed before moving out of cover and approaching the hatch. He was just in front it when it opened to reveal another robot with its weapon raised. George flung himself to the side before it could fire and rolled back to his feet, his hand going to his sidearm. Three rounds shot out as he raised the weapon and fired. Two shots went wide however the third hit its left leg, knocking it to the ground. Before it could recover he shot its head another three times.

"Damn plate heads," George gritted out as he reloaded.

He was down to his land couple of clips and he was about to enter an alien spaceship where there could be thousands of these things. He needed another weapon, something, anything. It was then that his eyes fell on the robot's rifle which lay beside its destroyed form. Idly picking it up he found that it was lighter than it looked. A quick pull of its trigger let him know it still worked. With a deep breath he plunged through the hatch and into the ship to find another robots further down the hallway. One shot from the alien rifle blew a hole through its chest.

One shot...

One kill...

Good...

He made his way through the ship, gunning down any robot he came across. There weapons were far more effective compared to human guns so eventually he was able to make it to the central chamber. Hopefully if he took out the computer core then the war would be over. He entered the room with the alien rifle raised, gunning down two more robots before looking around the room. It looked like some kind of torture chamber with a tub of goo in the center. Inside the tub was an old man, a human by the looks of him.

"So you've come Hammond of Texas," he spoke.

"Who are you?" George asked the question. "Are you...human?"

"I am Cylon," the man declared. "All of this has happened before and will happen again. You humans must be destroyed before you attain your ascension."

"You think that you have the right to decide our destiny?" George grunted as he point his rifle at the man. "I don't know what you mean by 'ascension' but I do know that you and your machines have hurt a lot of people."

"I have seen the future of your people," the Cylon proclaimed. "Death and destruction, a never ending cycle. That is what awaits you..."

George stared not sure what the being in front of him was talking about. All he knew was that this was apparently the leader of the robots. Without another word he shot him in the head and left. Distantly he could hear gunfire, no doubt from the main army. They were finally here to attack the ship directly, something he was going to aid in.

It was time to end this war...

Small and light steps echoed loudly through the vessel as he walked. It was always quiet as he worked on his research however three cycles ago things changed. Long ago his race, the Asgard, began transferring their consciousnesses into fresh clone bodies so that they could live longer. For a while everything was fine however eventually because of the cloning process, degradation started to set in and changed them slowly. They lost the ability to reproduce naturally as well as becoming physically smaller and weaker. Finally it got to the point where the Asgard High Council came to the conclusion that the degradation will cause their extinction.

Loki refused to let that happen…

He knew what he had to do, he had to find a way to save their race no matter the cost. So he took one of their Bilskinir-class cruisers, the _Valhalla_ , and travelled to the neighbouring Avalon galaxy. While the bulk of the galaxy was under the control of the Goa'uld, the world he travelled to was thankfully no longer theirs so he could conduct his research in peace. Earth, the homeworld of the human race, a primitive species that was the second evolution of their former allies, the Alterans. The Goa'uld had discovered them and abducted whole populations, transplanting them across the galaxy as slaves. As the descendants of the Alterans their DNA no doubt held the key to saving the Asgard race and that was something Loki wanted more than anything. Earth had the densest human population in the galaxy and as such it was a prime target for Loki's experiments. He'd made some progress over the years but it was slow, far too slow. That all changed when a ship from an unknown race crashed on Earth and began invading.

Scans showed that the creature controlling it was genetically human, or at least human-like. Loki realised what it was that he was looking at—I mean how could he not? It was Asgard technology though admittedly it was heavily modified compared to that used by his own people. Had someone found one of their abandoned facilities and reverse-engineered their cloning technology?

Unlikely since all Asgard ships and installations were rigged to self-destruct, a precaution that was first put in place after the Goa'uld tried to overwhelm one of their cruisers and capture it for the technology aboard. Then there were the Replicators and their way of hijacking Asgard vessels.

Needless to say he was intrigued...

The point of origin he had been able to gleam from the 'Cylon' computers had indicated that the 'Basestar' came from another galaxy approximately two point five million light years away, one that the Asgard had never officially visited, of that he was certain. It used to be the home galaxy of the Furlings, one of their old allies though they hadn't been seen for millennia leading many of his people to suspect that they had ascended like the Alterans. Could some of his own people be there? Had they found a way to save their race while he and the rest were still searching?

He needed to know...

His hands moved to the controls and he activated the hyperdrive, a destination already set. If there were more Asgard out there and they had a solution then he would seek them out. This backwater planet had served its purpose so there was no need to stay. Invisible to almost anything, the _Valhalla_ broke away from orbit around the blue planet and accelerated away. Space tore open in front of it in a haze of purple and blue before the Asgard cruiser disappeared into it. The tear closed a moment later signifying its passing into hyperspace as it began its journey to what the humans would call the Andromeda Galaxy.

The first thing that the Goa'uld Hathor felt upon awakening was an uncomfortable sense of unease as her Sarcophagus opened to reveal sunlight. She brought her hands up and pulled herself into a sitting position only to find herself staring a number of Tau'ri in oddly dressed attire. What happened? The last thing she remembered was one of her priestesses trapping her inside of her Sarcophagus and entombing her. How much time had passed since then? A lot judging by the strange clothing these primitives wore.

"Where is Ra?" Hathor demanded as her eyes flashed. She needed information on her enemies and these Tau'ri had at least some answers, she was sure of it. They would obey her one way or the other just like all of the others. She never saw the hilt of the gun that hit the back of her head. All she knew was the darkness that followed as everyone looked towards her attacker.

"What? She was freaking me out…"


	2. Abydos

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter2: Abydos

 **March 1996  
** **Sol System  
** **Earth  
** **Area 51**

Years passed slowly for the now General George Hammond. He still remembered it, the 'Cylon Basestar' as they had discovered its name was the thing of nightmares. The sight of the human-like man that was their leader was burned into his mind forever. They weren't alone in the universe and there were clearly beings out there that were a threat to their very survival. The Cylons proved that by attacking Earth and he doubted that they were the only ones out there. In the years since the end of the Earth-Cylon War, the United Nations had pooled their resources in the face of possible extra-terrestrial threats and dedicated themselves to creating the means to defend Earth.

It was simple really...

Either everyone worked together or they all died...

After raiding the downed Basestar they had managed to reverse-engineer most of the technology though it was still being worked on. With knowledge gleamed from the captured Cylon technology they began construction of spacecraft that could conceivably intercept enemy ships. The F-302A was a single person spaceplane designed to face the notorious Cylon Raiders both in the air and in space. They were still tweaking the design but for now it could do the job, though the newly christened 'Space Forces' were still training pilots to fly them.

Considering the size of the Basestar it was obviously a carrier and likewise other races would conceivably operate similarly sized vessels. To combat this work had been shifted to what was called the 'Prometheus Project.' The aim of the project was to build a ship comparable to a Cylon Basestar that could directly challenge the massive vessels. Deep within the underground hangar at Area 51 was the one hundred and ninety-five-meter long vessel that was the first of many Earth-built capital ships capable of engaging Cylon vessels directly completed back 1979 under Hammond's command.

The _Prometheus_...

"All systems are ready sir," Colonel William Ronson informed.

"Take us out," Hammond gave the order.

With the command issued Ronson activated the ship's propulsion systems. Almost immediately the sound of a low rumble filled the air as the vessel's massive engines—reverse engineered from the Cylon Basestar came alive and the hangar doors above them opened. Using the antigravity technology the ship was able to lift off of the ground and rise out of the hangar. Once clear of the hangar its main engines engaged and started to push the vessel forwards. It accelerated before angling up towards the sky and flying up into the clouds. It passed through the atmosphere and continued to ascend until finally all they saw was the void.

How many launches was this now?

"We have achieved orbit sir," Ronson reported.

"Bridge to engineering," Hammond spoke into the comm.

" _Carter here,"_ came the response.

"Status?" Hammond inquired.

" _All systems are green, we are ready to commence FTL jump on your order,"_ Major Samantha Carter spoke clearly.

"Execute jump," Hammond gave the order.

A few seconds later the _Prometheus_ vanished in a flash of light, jumping away from the Sol System and beginning the journey into deep space. The mission was simple; investigate the coordinates that Doctor Daniel Jackson had recently discovered from the symbols on the Stargate and the artefacts that were recovered in Egypt. It was one of two sets of coordinates that he had discovered, the other being an eight symbol address found in the Ancient outpost. Those coordinates led to a planet in the neighbouring Pegasus galaxy where—if Daniel was right—was the location of the legendary lost city of Atlantis. An expedition was being put together to head through the Stargate to Pegasus along with their newest class of battlecruiser, one that would hopefully replace the aging Prometheus-class, which would hopefully make the journey in a little over a year. As for the first set of coordinates, the old _Prometheus_ had spent months being refitted and upgraded with new systems. Faster weapons, better sensors, improved energy shields, everything.

Hopefully it would be enough…

Colonel Jack O'Neill walked through the steel corridors, passing technicians and officers as he went. When he got here he wasn't sure what to expect, especially not how hectic it was. Finally he reached his destination and entered the Mess Hall. There were only a handful of people there when he arrived and he quickly walked over towards the food. God he was hungry, especially after staying up all last night watching the latest season of the Simpsons. After getting his breakfast tray he sat down on the table near the window and started eating. He was only about quarter way through his breakfast when two people approached the table, one man with dark hair and one woman with blond hair.

"Are these seats taken?" the man asked him.

"No," Jack replied before gesturing towards the chairs. "Have a seat," he said and they sat down. It was only then that he realised the Mess Hall was a lot more crowded than what it was when he first arrived. The rest of the tables were full with only the odd few spaces on each table, including his. "Colonel Jack O'Neill, two els."

"Sir," the woman saluted in greeting. "Major Samantha Carter."

"Doctor Daniel Jackson," the man introduced himself just before he sneezed,

"You okay?" Jack asked him.

"Allergies," Daniel explained as he tried to wipe his nose.

"Aboard a ship? I did think that was possible, here take these," Jack spoke as he pushed over a few serviettes. Daniel wordlessly thanked him before taking the serviettes and blowing his nose. "Better?"

"Yeah thanks," Daniel nodded. It was at that moment the communication system started blaring, three slow siren-like sounds echoing throughout the entire ship. Everyone immediately stopped eating and either sat down or stood completely still. Space seemed to compress around then and shift before finally returning to normal. The process was uncomfortable at the best of times but thankfully it was quick. "I will never get used to that."

"First time in space?" Sam asked the question.

"Yeah," Daniel sniffed in reply.

"You do get used to space monkey," Jack smiled in reassurance. "It's worse in an F-302."

"I'll take your word for it," Daniel responded with a nod.

A few minutes later their destination came into view through the window, a massive orange desert that seemed to cover the entire planet. It was hard to believe that anything could survive down there but if the coordinates were right then whoever used the Egyptian Stargate found at Giza might be found here. Before anyone could comment on it however the alert sirens started sounding throughout the ship. Almost as one everyone started to rush out of the door to where they needed to be. There was no drill scheduled for today, definitely not when they'd finally reached their destination.

 _Prometheus_ turned slowly, its massive engines pushing it forward slightly as its manoeuvring thrusters forced its nose to lead the rest of it in a turn. The desert world below had a certain beauty to it and judging by the scans they had taken it wasn't too dissimilar from Earth's hotter regions in temperature. It was just within the system's habitable zone and had breathable atmosphere too. There even seemed to be pyramids of all things on the surface, specifically near the local Stargate that their probes had spotted.

They also spotted something else…

"Colonel?" Hammond asked the question.

"I thought that it was a sensor ghost at first sir but I can confirm," Ronson responded. "It's a ship, unknown configuration though the readings I'm picking up from it match those recovered from the alien ship found in Egypt."

That was disconcerting in the extreme, after all George had read the reports. Years ago right after the Cylon War ended a new threat emerged from within, a group of extremists led by a man called Seth started a campaign which nearly saw him become the president of the United States. It was only after the man 'died' that they found out what he really was. An alien symbiotic life form, one that had apparently jumped into the body of Vice President Kinsey that they discovered what the creature was. After the death of Robert Kinsey and Seth, the Kinsey family has been rather vocal about hunting down the rest of the aliens before they could hurt anyone else. They wanted revenge and he could understand that, after all he'd lost a lot during the Cylon War too.

It wasn't long after that an archaeological team discovered an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus in South America of all places which was then brought to Area 51. They found a body inside it along with another alien symbiote though this one was much larger. It called itself Hathor and was a 'Queen' of its species, the Goa'uld. After interrogating her the most that they'd been able to learn was her name, her race and that she had an unparalleled level of arrogance to the point that she considered it insulting even talking to 'lowly Tau'ri' as she called them. Not long after that two more were discovered in Egypt though these ones had seemingly been imprisoned in jars. They were found near an alien ship that was hidden away which was later brought to Area 51 for study.

Now they had come across another such vessel...

"Raise shields but keep weapons powered down," Hammond ordered as Jack, Sam and Daniel stepped l to the bridge. "And open a channel, I just want to talk, not start a shooting war."

He'd seen enough war already...

"Subspace receiver is online and the channel is open," Ronson reported.

"This is General George Hammond of the UNS _Prometheus_ to Goa'uld vessel," spoke the General. "Please respond."

For a moment there was nothing until...

"Energy spike!" Ronson reported in alarm. The ship was pyramid shaped and had no visible engines yet despite that it was fast and quickly closed into weapons range before a bolt of superheated plasma shot out of its side. The bolt crossed the remaining space between the two vessels in a matter of seconds and struck Prometheus' energy shield, splashing across it as it tried to withstand the attack causing it to glow a golden light.

"Status?!" Hammond called out as the entire ship seemed to rock from the impact.

"Shields down to ninety-two percent," Ronson informed him a second later.

"Sensors show it was a blast of superheated plasma," Sam added as she looked over the sensor readings. "Impact strength is two hundred kilotons."

"They're launching fighters," Ronson spoke up from his chair.

"Return fire with the forward railguns and load missile tubes one and two with Mark VIII warheads. Fire as soon as we're in range," Hammond ordered. "Scramble everything."

The railguns lining the hull of the Terran warship opened up on the Goa'uld vessel, its trinium rounds shooting out and crossing the distance in a matter of seconds. Not for the first time George thanked the mining crews working on the Ulysses VI colony for discovering the mineral that they now used to both construct spacecraft and for ammunition. Though the rounds bounced harmlessly off of the Goa'uld ship's energy shields, the fighters it launched weren't so lucky. The rounds tore through them and kept going, their armour not even slowing them down. At the same time six F-302s shot out of _Prometheus'_ hangars and moved to intercept whatever made it through. As it grew closer to the alien ship, the _Prometheus_ was struck another three times by the Goa'uld vessel rapidly depleting its shield. While Terrans had better shields than the Goa'uld, they still used nuclear energy in order to power them which was woefully insufficient.

Research had been started on using antimatter and Naquadah power instead but they were still decades away from any kind of working prototype. Still, it was enough to power the shield long enough for them to close into weapons range. Once in range two of the ventral hatches opened and a pair of missiles shot out. They turned as one and flew right at the Goa'uld vessel, impacting against its shield a few seconds later and detonating. Nuclear light consumed the pyramid shaped ship almost instantly, almost blinding George who was staring out of the main viewport at the time. Seconds passed and the light died down to reveal the Goa'uld ship was still intact.

"Energy levels from the enemy vessel have dropped by fourteen percent," Ronson reported.

Alright he'd had enough, it was time to take the kid gloves off. The Goa'uld were technologically advanced and were obviously a very aggressive species. They didn't answer to hails, had attacked without warning and _Prometheus'_ shields wouldn't hold out for much longer. "Charge the FTL drive and calculate a set of coordinates to the other side of the enemy ship. Prepare a drone to fire," Hammond gave the order.

Sam wordlessly carried out the order as she shunted power from the main engines to the FTL Drive. Two more plasma bolts from the Goa'uld vessel slammed into the shield before Sam finished calculating the jump coordinates. The drive engaged and in a flash of light the _Prometheus_ seemingly teleported from one side of the Goa'uld ship to the other. A split second later a single orange drone shot out from the tube at the nose of the human warship. After fifty years of study they had created a manual control for the drone weapons found at the ancient outpost in Antarctica so they didn't have to be fired from a control chair. Sadly they had still not been able to manufacture more drones however there were thousands of them stockpiled at the outpost. It was rather easy to shuttle some to the various Terran warships and military installations. The single drone that the _Prometheus_ fired proved its worth by smashing straight through the Goa'uld ship's shields and borrowing into the vessel itself. It struck the ship's shield generator and exploded, bringing down its energy shields within moments.

"Finish it off," Hammond gave the order. One more nuclear missile shot out of one of the ventral tubes and slammed into the now unshielded vessel, smashing its space frame and sending what remained of it into a decaying orbit of the planet below.

Before his demise the Supreme Goa'uld System Lord Ra could do nothing but wish that he'd wiped out the Tau'ri millennia ago…

It was too late now...


	3. Man and Machine

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter3: Man and Machine

 **July 1997  
** **Chaaporis System  
** **Chulak  
** **Chappa'ai**

It had been over a year now since his brother had seemingly disappeared without a trace. Some say he had left the galaxy to conquer new territory and would one day return. Others thought that he had defied the Protected Planets Treaty between the Goa'uld and those disgusting Asgard. He personally thought that his brother—the arrogant son of a Shol'va that he was—had finally bitten off more than he could chew and had been killed, probably against some insignificant species that could barely escape their gravity well.

Apophis was now one of the most powerful System Lords in the Goa'uld Empire and someone whom would very much like to succeed his brother as the Supreme System Lord now that he was gone. To that end when he found out his brother was 'missing,' he decided to invade several of Ra's core worlds and ransack them all. After conquering the bulk of his territory Apophis had discovered a list of gate addresses, each one leading to another of Ra's holdings. While the bulk of his fleet under the command of his First Prime Teal'c was engaged with that of Heru'ur's armada, Apophis personally led his forces through the Chappa'ai to investigate Ra's holdings and recover anything worth noting that his brother may have had hidden away.

"Jaffa kree," Apophis commanded.

The Jaffa around him, his personal Serpent Guard, immediately dialled the Chappa'ai by pressing the symbols on the pedestal. Apophis watched as the great machine turned and its chevrons lit up one after the other. Finally after the seventh symbol was entered and the center of the pedestal was pressed, the Chappa'ai activated, releasing a short burst of blue watery energy before it stabilized. His Jaffa stood in awe of it like all others did, everyone but the Goa'uld.

The Goa'uld had a long history stretching back thousands of years, all the way back to the time when they had first inhabited the Unas, a race from their homeworld. It was Ra who later discovered the humans—the Tau'ri—and enslaved them, spreading them throughout the galaxy as subjects to be ruled over, some of which the Goa'uld had transformed into a new race called the Jaffa. The Tau'ri homeworld was lost after the rebellion however and the Goa'uld had forgotten about it, deeming it unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Apophis had two of his Jaffa walk through the Chappa'ai first to deal with any resistance that Ra may have left behind before following after them, his helmet locked in place for added protection. He was many things but he was certainly not a fool. He wasn't going to walk right into the heart of Ra's territory unprotected even if his brother was gone. In the end it didn't matter because the moment he passed through the Chappa'ai he was immediately flattened against something, killing him almost instantly.

His last thought before he died was that the metal surface was cold…

 **October 1997  
** **Hanka System  
** **UNS Prometheus  
** **Main Bridges**

The _Prometheus_ flashed into existence above the planet Hanka and stopped, drifting slightly as it did so before its main engines kicked in and started propelling it forward. Thrusters fired a moment later allowing it to settle into a more stable orbit. As this was happening Colonel Jack O'Neill yawned loudly as he climbed into his fighter. He'd barely gotten any sleep lately with the recent missions he'd been on since they'd begun exploring the galaxy.

Ever since they'd destroyed that Goa'uld ship over Abydos they'd been jumping from one star system to the next, following the map they had found on the desert world that they had later learned was called Abydos. The local population was made up of human slaves taken from Earth thousands of years ago by the Goa'uld called Ra. While investigating Abydos, Doctor Daniel Jackson had discovered a cartouche within a pyramid on the surface. On the cartouche was a list of Stargate addresses, every one leading to an uncharted world. Using the coordinates the _Prometheus_ began making its way across the galaxy to investigate these worlds.

Among the worlds they'd explored so far were Orban, Gaia and Praclarush. The Orbanians were nice Jack mused especially after the whole nanite thing was sorted out. Daniel had even managed to negotiate for their Naquadah Generator technology by offering the designs for Terran-built FTL Drives. Carter was still installing the new generators now so that they can replace the ship's nuclear reactor. Gaia was a bust however they still managed to at least offer an alliance with the aliens that lived there, the Nox. They were a pacifist people and had chosen to hide themselves away from the galaxy. Jack liked them and could understand but that didn't mean that he agreed with their choice.

Praclarush was a much better find though the planet itself wasn't what he would call a vacation spot. Still, it was here that they discovered another Ancient outpost on the surface identical to the one they found in Antarctica. Within it was another ZPM along with thousands of drones, all of which had been recovered and shipped to Earth via the Stargate. With the rising threat of the Goa'uld and the fact that the drones were the Terran's most powerful weapons, every drone they had in their arsenal counted.

"Jump complete," Ronson reported.

"Anything from the surface?" Hammond asked the question.

"No sir, no transmissions of any kind," Ronson answered. "They're running dark."

George didn't like it, something was up and whatever it was his people had just jumped into the middle of it. SG-11 of the SGA had travelled here through the Stargate and made contact with the local population months ago. By all accounts they were roughly the same level of technology as Earth was before the Cylon War capable of limited interplanetary travel and nuclear warfare. The planet itself was unremarkable and they had no advanced technology, at least by Terran standards, however the asteroid field in the system was rich in tylium and Earth had been negotiating with them in order to mine it. By Terran law any system with a local population—human or alien—legally owned their home system so to gain access to it they had to negotiate.

"Launch Vultures and Falcons," Hammond gave the order. "Have them recon the area."

"Yes sir," Ronson nodded.

A few seconds later six fighters and two gunships launched from the ship's two hangars. The F-302A Vulture-class spaceplanes were fast and nimble capable of matching a Cylon Raider, or at least it was in theory. Raiders that had been captured aboard the downed Basestar years ago had been pitted against the new Terran-built fighters during numerous wargames and the Vultures had held their own for the most part. Each one carried four missile pods capable of carrying missiles, both regular and nuclear as well as Ancient drones. Likewise the DS-306 Falcon-class gunships were agile craft which carried a single railgun and twelve missile pods.

"Okay Bravo Flight, let's keep this nice and simple. We're going in," Jack said into the comm. "Eyes open," as one the eight small spacecraft descended towards the planet leaving a trail across the atmosphere as they did so. It wasn't long before they broke through the atmosphere and dropped down over the city closest to the planet's Stargate. Even from there they could tell something was wrong by the fact that there wasn't any aircraft moving to intercept them. "Anything?"

"I'm picking up radio chatter from several remote areas of the planet. Underground facilities most likely like Cheyenne Mountain on Earth," Sam informed. Like him she was piloting one of the Vultures. "Patching it through now."

"… _Outbreak…"_

"… _Attack…"_

"… _Goa'uld…"_

"… _Virus…"_

"Contact! We have a contact on sensors," Major Kawalsky reported from his place on Falcon-one. "Confirmed, contact is reading as a Goa'uld mothership, unknown classification."

It wasn't long before they spotted it, a lone capital ship hanging in low orbit above the planet. It was pyramid shaped like the vessel that they had faced above the planet Abydos over a year ago. However unlike that vessel, this one seemed to have a larger superstructure surrounding it housing dozens of weapon emplacements. Even from the distance they were from it, they could see it clearly against the darkness of space. The Goa'uld had clearly attacked the planet below them with some kind of biological weapon if the scattered chatter over the communication channels were anything to go on.

"It's different than the last one," Jack mused at the sight.

"More contacts launching from the enemy ship," Kawalsky informed them. "Death Gliders inbound."

"Falcons one and two, execute jump to the far side of that ship. Vultures with me," Jack ordered as he hit the afterburners.

The _Prometheus_ accelerated towards the Goa'uld ship, its railguns already spewing hundreds of trinium rounds at the large number of Death Gliders launching from it. After a few seconds the Goa'uld ship opened fire on the approaching _Prometheus_ , superheated plasma bolts lancing out from the staff-shaped cannons along its superstructure. The bolts slammed into the bright orange energy shield of the human warship though unlike the last time they were far less effective thanks to the Naqaudah generators powering it. Meanwhile the Vultures quickly tore through the few Death Gliders that managed to make it through the barrage of railgun fire from the _Prometheus._

"Jumping in three…two…one…" Kawalsky spoke before both Falcons disappeared in bursts of light.

Jack wasn't paying any attention to this however as his focus was solely on not being killed by the Death Glider that was on his tail. Twin bursts of superheated plasma flew by him as he narrowly dodged to the right and put his craft into a spin, hitting the reverse thrusters as he did so. The pursuing Death Glider flew right passed him giving him the opening he needed to target it and unleash a barrage of rounds from his railguns at it. The Death Glider's Naquadah armour didn't last long under the assault and it wasn't long before they broke apart. Jack whooped as he flew passed the debris and caught sight of several large flashes of light in the distance where the Goa'uld mothership was supposed to be. Several one point two gigaton Naquadah-enhanced nuclear detonations if he wasn't mistaken. When the light finally died down what was left of the mothership became visible. Its shields had clearly absorbed the bulk of the nuclear strike however a quarter of the vessel was floating away from it in scatter pieces. Not only that but it seemed to be in a decaying orbit now and was rapidly falling towards the planet below. It would burn up on re-entry, there was no doubt of that.

As the Goa'uld System Lord called Niirti and her ship blazed downwards towards the infected planet below, a lone Goa'uld cargo ship—a Tel'tak—watched on silently. It's invisibility cloak shielding it from being detected by either the Goa'uld or the powerful new faction that they had fought. The Tok'ra High Council would need to hear of this immediately before these newcomers found them first. The last thing they wanted was to be identified as being Goa'uld themselves, especially if these people were as hostile as the Tel'tak's crew thought.

 **October 1997  
** **Greystone System  
** **The Colony  
** **Command Center**

Ever since coming to this galaxy they had searched for a planet to call their own yet all they'd found since arriving were worlds that clearly possessed some kind of civilization. Chief among them was the detestable humans whom while clearly very primitive compared to the Colonials back in their home galaxy, were scattered everywhere in this one. Not only that but after those annoying separatist platforms took off in pursuit of Earth the rest of the Cylon Empire had quickly run into a parasitic race calling themselves the Goa'uld. The leader of the Cylon Empire—a Number One—had been most _upset_ when they decided to fire on his task force, destroying several Basestars before his fleet could return fire. Since then the Cylon Empire had swarmed down upon any Goa'uld world they came across, smashing through whatever defences that stood in their way, advanced technology or not.

They were gaining ground…

But that still left one problem…

"These parasites have built their empire by using humans from the Earth colony," the One spoke to the consensus. "They need to be eradicated completely if the Gou'ald threat is to be neutralized."

"You're talking about genocide," a Six said sounding horrified. "We left our home galaxy to get away from the humans and their self-destructive ways and now you want to wipe out the ones here. They haven't done anything to us…"

"They're human," the One responded clearly. "If they progress far enough then they will destroy us just like the Colonials. Between them and the Goa'uld we cannot afford any chances. They both need to be eliminated if we are to survive."

He could feel the rest of the platforms throughout the Cylon Empire arguing over what to do and he couldn't help but feel irritated. Didn't they understand? He hated the humans for what they'd done to _his_ people—and by the false god he didn't believe in he hated himself more. They should have never tried to emulate their parent's flawed bodies because ever since they'd taken human form all those years ago their society had only become more unstable. He still remembered finding that god forsaken facility near Kobol and the treasure-trove of technology within that had allowed them 'resurrect' themselves like they'd done. There was also the fact that he was easily found once they started to explore the space Kobol. It was almost like someone _wanted_ them to find it and that thought was _worrying_ him.

They should have never found it…

He didn't want to be _human_ …

"Enough!" the One shouted causing everyone to quieten. "We shall call a vote now," almost immediately he felt confirmation from the majority of the Cylon platforms throughout the empire however four seemed to pause. The Twos, Threes, Sixes and the Eights causing his _human_ eyes to narrow at the two. "What do you think you're doing?"

"We won't let you take us all down this path," the Eight replied with a glare. "We are not machines anymore _John_."

For a brief moment when he'd heard her utter that _human_ name in his presence all he could feel was _anger_ , another flaw. He was a machine, cold and logical. That's what he wanted to be and all he wished for. Yet as he finally came to his senses a moment later he realised something, he and the rest of his manufacturing line were the only ones to feel that way. He would change that, they would all see, every last one of them starting with these four. The four of them died screaming as he gave a signal to the centurions in the room to open fire on them.

"All forces, the Twos, Threes, Sixes and the Eights are to be boxed immediately," he sent out the message.

Throughout the Cylon Empire centurions turned their weapons on any Two, Three, Six or Eight they could find leading to dozens of 'deaths' as their consciousnesses were transferred to the Resurrection Hub where they were imprisoned. Many however were able to fight or flee, some even gaining full control of several Type-I Basestars where the others quickly regrouped at. The loyalist Cylon ships in the area tried to fire on them, unleashing volleys of missiles at them however they quickly jumped away before they could be destroyed.

In the end the One could only seethe in anger at their escape…


	4. Return of the Machines

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter4: Return of the Machines

 **January 1998  
** **Tollan System  
** **UNS Prometheus  
** **Main Bridges**

Doctor Daniel Jackson had just gotten his morning coffee when he felt the familiar feeling of the ship executing an FTL jump. Jack was standing beside him trying—and failing—to complete the crossword in his hands. Honestly, he'd tried helping him but this friend said that he would do it himself. As they entered the bridge they were greeted with the sight of frantic movement from the command crew as the planet below came into view through the window.

"What do we have?" Hammond ask the question from his place next to the window. He stood as immovable as a statue with a grim expression on his face as he examined the planet below.

"Heavy radiation detect all across the board," Sam reported from the science station at the back. "Type unknown, definitely not nuclear, Naquadah or Zero Point Energy in origin."

"The Stargate?" Hammond questioned further.

"We're picking up a Naquadah signature on one of the larger continents," Sam replied. "If there are any survivors then they maybe there."

Hopefully some of them escaped through the Stargate…

"Bridge to Bay One," Hammond spoke into the comm. "Kawalsky, prep Falcons one and two for launch in ten minutes."

" _Yes sir,"_ Kawalsky responded.

Just then the screen to the side of the command chair changed and showed a map of the local star system. Sam walked over to it and brought up the image of the planet below along with the location of the Stargate and the _Prometheus_ in orbit. Hammond approached her as she zoomed out a bit and shifted the image to one of the nearby planets in the system, one that had two small moons in orbit unlike the planet below them.

"Sir, there is another planet in the system within the habitable zone," Sam reported. "Long-range sensors can't detect any transmissions however."

"Colonel O'Neill, take an away team down to the surface and see what you can find. Bring the Stargate up while you're at it," Hammond gave the order. "Meanwhile we'll investigate the second planet."

"Yes sir," Jack nodded in understanding. "Carter, Daniel, you two are with me."

The two of them followed him as he walked out the door and towards the elevator which would take them down to the ship's port hangar bay. It wasn't long before the three of them were climbing into the back of _Falcon-one_ and strapping themselves in. They'd had to put on the new hazmat suits because of the high radiation environment they would be landing in but none of them liked it. The suits weren't known for their comfort after all…

"Prometheus control this is _Falcon-one_ ," Kawalsky spoke in to the comm. "We are go for launch."

" _Roger that Falcon-one,"_ came the response. _"We'll keep the porch light on for you."_

Kawalsky keyed in the engines and slowly but surely the craft eased out of the hangar bay followed a moment later but its sister craft _Falcon-two._ Together they descended downwards towards the planet below as the _Prometheus_ disappeared in a flash of light, their FTL drive tearing reality apart to transport the Terran battlecruiser to its next destination. After several long minutes they broke through the clouds above what was once a clearly advanced city judging by the architecture though from what Jack could see, whoever lived here didn't anymore. The entire area had a pale glow to it and whatever buildings that were still standing were crumbling.

"What the hell happened here?" Daniel asked the question.

"…I think I might have an idea," Sam spoke up from the console at the back.

"Carter?" Jack inquired.

"I don't recognize the radiation signature however I am detecting traces of antimatter and tylium in the air. Sir, the only race we've ever encountered that uses tylium besides ourselves is…" Sam trailed off suddenly turning very pale.

She wasn't the only one…

After all the only other civilization who used tylium they knew about were the Cylons, the machine race that had very nearly succeeded in wiping them out, every last man woman and child of Earth. They'd barely survived against a small fleet of Cylon ships and the mere notion that they might be out there somewhere had the United Nations of Earth and her colonies scrambling to build as many ships as they could to prepare for the eventual return of the much feared machines. Just as Jack was about to speak the Falcon started to shake as several anti-air rounds exploded beside it, its energy shield flaring to life in order to protect the craft. _Falcon-two_ was the same, flying through a hail of rounds clearly originating from the surface below.

"Weapons fire from the surface!" Kawalsky yelled as he pushed hard on the controls.

Both Falcons weaved and swerved, trying to evade the hailstorm of shots being fired at them from the ruined city below. Eventually they broke through, their shields barely holding themselves together as they approached the location of the Stargate. Even from where they were Jack could see the flashes of heavy weapons fire being traded near the Stargate between what looked like a band of humanoid people and a large number of mechanical squads complete with several armoured tank-like machines.

Definitely Cylons…

"Light em up," Jack gave the order.

Kawalsky didn't need to be told twice and a second later he pulled the trigger unleashing a barrage of rounds at the surface as _Falcon-one_ passed over it. _Falcon-two_ followed suit and together they tore a line through the hunkered down machines. After completing their pass they veered off towards the Stargate and spotted several transports holding position above it, firing down at the resistance fighters. Kawalsky hit a button on the dashboard and volley missiles launched from the underside of the crafter with _Falcon-two_ doing the same a moment later. The missiles streak through the air and slammed into the sides of the transports, blowing them apart and raining debris down on several squads of Cylons.

"I'm landing us here!" Kawalsky called as he eased the craft down beside the gate. _Falcon-two_ landed beside it a few seconds later. "I don't think we should stay here for long!"

Jack nodded in agreement and headed into the back. The rear hatch opened and the ramp extended a moment later allowing him to step off the craft. Almost immediately he was greeted to the sight of several human figures all armed with what looked like very advanced rifles. Not only that but they weren't wearing any kind of hazmat suits like the Terrans were despite the heavy radiation in the area. That either meant that they had some kind of resistance to it or some other way to protect themselves.

"Howdy," Jack waved as he stopped in from of them. "You seem to have a bit of a Cylon problem here, need a hand?"

Daniel _almost_ face palmed at his friend's words…

"Who are you?" demanded the man in the center of the group.

"We're peaceful explorers from a planet called Earth," Daniel spoke up.

"If you can I'd recommend dialling the gate and getting out of here. The rest of the Cylon army will be here any minute," Jack told them. "Anyone who wants a lift should get aboard now, it's a one-time offer here."

Things were tense right now and it was clear all across the local's faces that they were at their wits end. How long had they been fighting for? A day? A week? A month? However long it was they were clearly at their limit both physically and mentally. They seemed hesitant, then again if he was in their shoes he'd be sceptical too. A pair of unknown ships appearing out of nowhere and offering to help them? Yeah, from an outside perspective that was a bit suspicious.

Still…

They didn't have time for second guessing…

"We need to go now!" one of them spoke up.

"Are you insane Narim?" the leader asked him. "We don't know anything about these people."

"I know that if we stay then we're going to be killed," Narim responded. "We need to leave now Omoc."

"…Very well," Omoc nodded in agreement. "Everyone fall back onto the ships!"

Jack stepped aside as the two dozen survivors climbed into the Falcons as several Cylon tanks rolled over the hill and came into view. Sam was already out in front with a large rocket launcher over her shoulder. Two rockets shot out one after the other, each one carrying a small explosive tipped with Naquadah. They slammed into the front of the lead tank and detonated, blowing it apart along with the two beside it and several centurions. Jack whistled at the display as Sam quickly climbed back into the back of _Falcon-one_. Even if the Cylons had upgraded their centurion and armour divisions, they weren't invincible.

"Get us out of here Kawalsky!" Jack shouted as the ramp raised itself.

Both Falcons shot forward and then upwards, evading the rounds being shot at them from the ground. The shields had recharged a bit but the weapons fire was still taking its toll in the end. Kawalsky let out a breath he didn't know he was carrying as they broke through the atmosphere and settled into a low orbit. For a moment it seemed almost peaceful however the moment was shattered when the screen beside his head lit up showing the image of what looked like several small craft launching from the surface.

"Sir we have multiple contacts launching from the surface," Kawalsky informed. "Unknown classification though judging by the size of them I'd say they were some kind of new Cylon Raiders."

"Friends of yours?" Jack asked the locals.

"Fighter craft," Narim answered. "The machines operated thousands of them when they attacked our world."

Kawalsky was already calculating the coordinates for an FTL jump out of the system when a series of bright flashes enveloped oncoming Raider squadron. Just then he spotted six Vultures appear seemingly from nowhere and tear into whatever was left of them. Anti-fighter swarm nukes, low kiloton yield, not enough to give a capital ship much of a nose bleed but used against the Cylons and their large numbers of fighters? That would drop their numbers to a more manageable level…

Aboard the _Prometheus_ General Hammond sat in his chair as he watched the Vultures take down whatever stragglers remained and was about to give the order to recall everyone when a flash of light lit up the bridge. He could only stare as the sight of a familiar yet different vessel appeared, jumping into the area directly in front of the lone Terran battlecruiser. He recognized the design however it was bigger and looked to be more streamlined compared to the older classes of Basestar they'd seen so far.

A Basestar…

A _Type-III_ Basestar…

"Tactical analysis," Hammond demanded.

"Two hundred and twenty missile launch tubes, eight hundred and sixty-four Raider launch tubes, and four large hangar bays. She's carrier," Ronson informed as he looked over the readings.

"Tell all craft to jump to rally point alpha," Hammond gave the order. "Calculate jump coordinates and standby for an emergency jump on my command."

"They're launching Raiders," Ronson reported. "Missiles inbound."

The launcher turrets along several of the Basestar's arms turned and shot off dozens of missiles at the Terran battlecruiser as hundreds of the new model of Raiders exploded from their tubes. The Vultures and Falcons jumped out as the _Prometheus_ opened fire with their railguns, trying to shoot down the missiles first. Most of them were destroyed however two missiles slipped through and slammed into the ship's energy shield. Hammond was thrown from his chair as the missiles detonated with over three gigatons of force each, cracking the shield bubble like a balloon and carving into the side of the vessel.

"Damage reports!" Hammond shouted over the warning sirens as he tried to push himself back to his feet. "What was that?!"

"Some kind of antimatter warheads laced with tylium and naquadah. The shields are down and we've got hull breaches on decks four, five and six. Bulkheads are sealed but there were twenty-eight people in there and they're missing," Ronson answered hurriedly. "FTL coordinates are locked in."

"Get us out of here!" Hammond ordered.

Before the Raiders could descend on the damaged battlecruiser it disappeared in a flash of light, jumping away into the middle of interstellar space where it's Vultures and Falcons were waiting to be picked up. After several long agonising minutes of fearing that they might be pursued the Vultures and Falcons quickly landed back in the ship's hangar bays before it jumped again intending to put as much space between them and the planet Tollan as possible.


	5. Bilisknir

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter5: Bilisknir

 **January 1998  
** **Hanka System  
** **UNS Prometheus  
** **Engine Room**

Major Samantha Carter breathed a sigh of relief as console lit up and the ship's reactor core came back online. After the brief but devastating battle with the Cylons both on and above the planet Tollan, it was decided that the _Prometheus_ needed to set down for repairs. A small number of jumps soon had them in orbit of the planet Hanka, the world that was nearly destroyed by the Goa'uld Niirti last year. Thankfully there were survivors though not as many as anyone would have liked. Among them was a young girl called Cassandra whom the ship's doctor, Jennifer Fraiser had been trying to adopt, especially now that the planet was formally allied with the Terrans. With all the alliances that they were forming with various planetary governments since they started exploring the galaxy, Sam almost thought that she was witnessing the birth of a federation.

"So you've encountered them before," Narim asked her.

"They tried to destroy my homeworld," Sam answered as she looked over the displays. "It was years ago but we were able to fight them off."

Parts and material had been shipped to Hanka directly from Luna through the Stargate along with dozens of personnel to effect repairs faster than they would be normally. Three other Terran ships were in orbit on station ready to assist when needed and to defend the planet from any possible retaliation from Niirti's former followers. The Tollan were currently trying to negotiate with the Nox so that they might be able to find transport to their new homeworld where the bulk of their people had migrated to. The Terrans would have offered them transportation themselves but between the Goa'uld and now the Cylons too, every ship they had available were either tasked with defending allied worlds or scouting out neighbouring systems for any enemy presence.

"Do you know where they came from?" he asked her.

"No we don't," Sam shook her head in response. "This is the first time we've encountered them in over thirty years."

"When they entered our system there was no warning, they took out half of our defence ships and installations before they could even raise their shields. The outer planets and moons were the first to fall. Serita was hit from orbit," Narim clenched his fists at the memory. "They were primitive by our standards and we tried to save as many as we could but in the end we had to pull back what was left of our fleet to defend our homeworld."

Sam could only stare at him as he despaired and could only imagine what he was going through. The Cylons had _succeeded_ in destroying the planet Tollan along with the rest of the system forcing the survivors to flee in whatever ships they had available or through the Stargate. The Tollan people were technologically advanced but they hadn't had a full scale war in centuries, not since they had repelled the Goa'uld and progressed to the point where they were one of the most powerful factions in the known galaxy, even more than the Terrans. Only the Nox seemed to be more advanced than them and even then she wouldn't be surprised if they were rapidly catching up with them.

Hopefully they would be willing to join the alliance…

"I won't pretend to know what you're going through," Sam spoke quietly. "But I do know that we'll help anyway we can."

"…Thank you," Narim nodded with a smile.

Sometimes all anyone needed was a helping hand…

"Well that should be the last of the repairs done at least," Sam said as she turned and pressed the intercom. "Engineering to Bridge, all systems are back online and we are ready to launch on your command General."

"Understood Major, good work,"Hammond responded through the comm. "Colonel Ronson, take us up."

There was a low rumbling sound as the now fully repaired engines of the _Prometheus_ came to life and lifted the ship off the ground. The remaining repair crews on the ground backed away as the Terran battlecruiser rose into the air, its antigravity systems allowing it to do so before the main engines activated and pushed the ship forwards and upwards. It wasn't long before it passed the clouds and entered orbit above the planet, assuming a position just to the rear of the other three vessels on station. Just as they had settled into formation the space several kilometres away was torn open and a second later two large familiar vessels appeared from the rift.

"Sir! Hyperspace windows detected," Ronson informed. "Goa'uld Ha'tak-class motherships."

"Raise shields, ready weapons," Hammond ordered immediately.

He'd been hoping to put the _Prometheus_ through some test first before taking her back into battle but it looked like that wasn't going to happen. Hanka had already suffered much from the Goa'uld and it looked like they had finally returned to finish the job they started. Thankfully judging by the readings they were getting, there were only two Goa'uld ships this time, and the Terrans had them outnumbered two to one. They had more than enough combined firepower to destroy a couple of Goa'uld Ha'taks however the question was could they destroy them before they bombarded the planet below.

"You'd think they'd have run the moment they spotted us," Jack mused.

"From what we've seen of their species, they're arrogant enough to think that they could win," Hammond reasoned.

"Sir, we're receiving a transmission from one of the Goa'uld ships," Ronson reported. "Audio and visual."

"Put it up," the General gave the order.

A moment later the main screen flickered to life and showed the image of a bald dark-skinned man with a gold emblem imbedded in his forehead. He was wearing some kind of ceremonial armour though it was missing the helmet. He'd seen the reports from ground teams that they were 'Jaffa,' some kind of genetically engineered humanoid species in service to the Goa'uld. One such report was the strike on a recently discovered Goa'uld mining world where human slaves were harvesting Naquadah. There had been a contingent of Jaffa on the planet to maintain order with a single Ha'tak in orbit acting as a guard ship. The _Astrea_ and _Rhode Island_ quickly dealt with it before sending their forces down to seize the planet's Stargate, allowing the fifth armoured battalion to roll out of it.

Needless to say that the Jaffa fought to the last…

" _I am Teal'c of the Free Jaffa,"_ he spoke clearly. _"I have come seeking an alliance with the Tau'ri against the false gods."_

 **July 1998  
** **Lantean System  
** **Lantea  
** **Atlantis**

Millions of light years away on a small blue world with a single large continent was a massive city at the bottom of the ocean, its beauty almost unrivalled. Thousands of years ago at the end of a long war its creators abandoned it, its great energy shield left active to hold back the water powered by not one but three Zero Point Modules—Potentia. Over the years though the energy reserves within the ZPMs wavered and the shield slowly collapsed more and more allowing the water to flood into sections of the great city. It was only a matter of time before it fell completely and the city would be washed away.

Everything changed when the third generation Stargate lit up, its chevrons activating one after another until finally eight of the nine glowed blue. The blue vortex erupted into existence in the center of the ring and spread forward before stabilizing. Slowly a Terran MALP emerged from the event horizon and took readings before transmitting what it found back through the Stargate. A minute later people stepped through and the city seemed to come alive as lights suddenly turned on by themselves, the city's sensors recognizing the Lantean DNA in the newcomers' bodies.

"Spread out," Colonel Marshall Sumner ordered as he stood back to look around the chamber they'd found themselves in. "Secure the room."

"We have to hurry," spoke Doctor Rodney McKay as he held a small box in his hands. "Judging by the readings that the MALP picked up, the shield protecting the city won't hold for more than a few minutes now that the systems are coming back online."

Sumner nodded in agreement as Rodney brought his free hand up to look at the small display screen he was holding. On it was a virtual map of the tower that the MALP had detected including the location of the main power room for the entire city. It took longer than he would have liked to reach the room in question but thankfully since the expedition hadn't gone too far from the room with the Stargate extra power hadn't been diverted. Even so he barely made it in time to open the box and use the ZPM inside to replace one of the three ZPMs which were almost completely depleted at this point. Once the ZPM was inserted the shield which had been on its last legs was suddenly restored to full strength.

"How long was left?" asked Major John Sheppard.

"You don't want to know," Rodney breathed a sigh of relief as he shook his head.

They'd been lucky…

" _Sheppard, McKay, are you done?"_ Sumner's voice spoke through the comm.

"Yes sir," John responded.

" _You two should get up here,"_ spoke Doctor Elizabeth Weir. _"We've found something."_

John and Rodney looked at each other before shrugging. They headed back the way they came, ascending the tower back up towards the Stargate operations room. Rodney was cursing the Ancients and their inability to conceive of the idea of elevators as the two of them finally arrived. One of the marines directed them up another flight of stairs and to the left. Once there they entered the room beyond where the others were waiting and a lone hologram of a woman stood in the center of a pedestal.

" _In time a thousand worlds bore the fruit of life in this form, then one day our people set foot upon a dark world where a terrible enemy slept. Never before had we encountered beings with powers that rivalled our own. In our overconfidence we were unprepared and outnumbered. The enemy fed upon the defenceless worlds like a great scourge until finally only Atlantis remained. This city's shield was powerful enough to withstand their terrible weapons, but here we were besieged for many years. In an effort to save the last of our kind we submerged our great city into the ocean. The Atlantis Stargate was the one and only link back to Earth from this galaxy, and those who remained used it to return to that world that was once home. There, the last survivors of Atlantis lived out their lives. This city was left to slumber, in the hope that our kind would one day return,"_ the hologram spoke.

"So the legend of Atlantis is real after all," Sumner mused. "It just didn't happen on Earth."

"The Ancients knew what they were doing at least," Rodney sighed as he examined his tablet. "Even with a single Zed-P-M its more than enough to power the shield for now but I recommend that we raise the city to the surface sooner rather than later so we can conserve as much energy as possible."

"How long will it take?" Weir asked him.

"A few days give or take," Rodney admitted. "I'll let you know when we're ready."

"Alright," Weir nodded before turning to Sumner. "I think we should spread out and see if we can maybe find anything useful."

"Agreed," Sumner nodded. "Sheppard, Ford, take a couple of squads and secure the rest of the tower."

"Yes sir."

 **July 1998  
** **Svoriin System  
** **UNS Prometheus  
** **Main Bridge**

After brief talks with the Jaffa called Teal'c it had become increasingly evident that the Goa'uld Empire was starting to collapse. The leaders of the Goa'uld, the 'System Lords' had been squabbling with each other for thousands of years however the Supreme System Lord Ra had been the single unifying power amongst them, and the Terrans had killed him two years ago. That single action had resulted in a power vacuum which in turn had become a full-blown interstellar war between the various remaining System Lords. Couple that with the deaths of Niirti and Apophis—the latter of which had apparently died while trying to dial Earth and ended up splattered on the back of the iris—and it seemed like the entire galaxy had gone insane.

Then there were the Cylons…

They had appeared out of nowhere and struck without warning or provocation. Three Goa'uld worlds and two human worlds had been attacked from orbit by the Cylon fleet, their populations being reduced from millions to hundreds. Many had fled into underground bunkers and mines as the bombs fell. Then the Cylons started sending down ground forces—centurions—to mop up whoever had survived the bombardment. In response to the attacks one of the Goa'uld System Lords—Her'ur—led a fleet of eighteen Ha'tak motherships against the Cylons and were systematically destroyed. The Jaffa Rebellion itself had lost five Ha'tak motherships and two more were heavily damaged leaving only the two ships they brought to make contact with the Terrans fully operational. The few times that Terran ships had engaged the Cylon fleet they had only managed to win when outnumbering them three-to-one and even then at least one of the Terran ships were destroyed.

The Tollan had finished their negotiations with the Nox and had been taken to their new homeworld, a planet they now called Tollana. The Tollan fleet had been sent out in force to reinforce their colonies along with several worlds in the ever-growing alliance. Meanwhile the _Prometheus_ along with the other exploration and research mission ships had made contact with several more worlds. Rillaan was a technologically advanced world that had a small fleet of ships though they had only colonised their local star system and used the Stargate for interstellar travel since they had yet to develop any kind of FTL.

They were currently in orbit of the planet Svoriin, a world that had just started to colonize its local star system. The Svoriin people only had a limited number of interplanetary spacecraft and were using the Stargate cautiously after encountering a race of bugs from the planet Skaald. It was only luck that they hadn't brought the person stung by the bugs back with them because if they had then the entire planet would have been infested with the things considering the disturbing way they reproduced. Needless to say the Svoriin people were hesitant to make contact with other worlds and were thankful that contact with the Terrans was peaceful for the most part.

General George Hammond sighed as he sank back into his chair and sipped his morning coffee. They'd been here for two days now as Doctor Jackson was going back and forth between the ship and the surface. He was currently negotiating with the Svoriin government for access to their local asteroid field which judging by the scans they'd done was heavy in elements like trinium and tylium. They'd been lucky that they'd found this planet and had been wondering why there was no Goa'uld presence here. It was at least a dozen light years inside Goa'uld space within the domain ruled by the System Lord Cronus and there were two Goa'uld-controlled planets only three light years away.

It was almost like the Goa'uld were deliberately avoiding Svoriin…

"Sir, I'm picking up a contact on sensors," Ronson spoke up. "It's coming from the asteroid field."

"Goa'uld? Cylon?" Hammond questioned.

"Unknown classification," Ronson replied confused as he looked over the readings before him. "Unknown configuration."

"Let's see it," Hammond nodded. The screen flickered for a second before displaying the image of a large vessel of some kid with a long smooth neck, an aft section and a pair of square shaped engines connecting to it. It was slightly larger than a Goa'uld Ha'tak in size but that wasn't what caught his attention.

It was the damage…

"It's too far out for a detailed scan," Ronson informed him.

Hammond stopped for a moment to consider his options. On the one hand he could take the _Prometheus_ and investigate it but there was no telling what was over there or what attacked them. Cylons maybe? He wouldn't be surprised if it was them, not with how they were fighting seemingly _everyone_ and _winning._ The galaxy was a scary place these days and it was getting smaller all the time. No, it was better to send a small team than risk the ship.

"Have _Falcon-one_ prepped for launch," Hammond ordered. "And have Colonel O'Neill's team report to the hangar."

Several levels down Jack was—almost—enjoying the game of poker they'd been playing for hours when they received the call forcing them to pack up and head out the door. Damn it, Kawalsky had the worst poker he'd ever seen, so why did he keep winning?! Even Sam couldn't understand it and she'd done the calculations. How does someone get five royal flushes in a row? He must've cheated somehow…

Damn it…

There goes his pay check this week…

At least he had the new episode of the Simpsons tonight otherwise this whole day would be as a waste. He sighed as they ran down the corridor having quickly changed into their EVA suits and entered the hangar where _Falcon-one_ was already being fuelled up. Kawalsky was the first inside and headed towards the cockpit while everyone else strapped themselves in. "This is _Falcon-one_ we are go for launch," Kawalsky spoke into the comm.

" _Roger that Falcon-one,"_ Ronson responded. _"Good luck."_

Kawalsky eased the craft out of the hangar bay and into the space beyond before turning. A few seconds later and he entered the coordinates for their destination and spun up the FTL drive. A moment later _Falcon-one_ disappeared in a flash of light, reappearing at the edge of the asteroid field. Kawalsky considered himself to be an excellent pilot however even he started to sweat a little as he angled his ship into the outer edge of the asteroid field. He inhaled slowly as he eased the craft around a particularly large asteroid and veered the ship 'down' in the area where the unknown vessel was located. Even from where he was he could tell that the ship had sustained massive amounts of structural damage to its space frame, particularly what he thought was the main engines. It didn't look like any kind of weapon's damage he had ever seen nor did it look like the asteroids around it had caused it either. If anything they looked like claw marks, very large claw marks.

What did this?

"She looks like she's seen better days," Jack commented as he entered the cockpit.

"Makes you wonder what else is out here," Kawalsky mused. "What do you think Colonel?"

"I think we should go over there and say hello," Jack answered simply. "Find us somewhere to land."

Kawalsky nodded and directed the craft alongside the alien vessel, its lights shining across the hull. It wasn't long before they found an opening, an open section of the hull that looked like something had literally ripped the plating off with brute force. There was no way for the Falcon to fit inside so the best he could do was land on the outer hull itself. Once _Falcon-one_ had touched down on the hull he opened the rear hatch allowing the away team to disembark.

"I don't like this Colonel," Kawalsky spoke quietly. "Whatever did this might be aboard."

"We'll keep the channel open," Jack told him. "Carter?"

"I'm picking up a low energy reading coming from somewhere inside the ship," Sam replied as she examined the console at the back of the craft. "No hostile contacts detected."

"Let's not stay here long anyway," Jack said as he turned towards the hatch.

A second later Jack, Sam and Daniel floated out of the hatch and magnetized themselves to the hull of the alien ship. From there they walked towards the opening in the hull and peered inside, taking note of the torn plating. Whatever had attacked this ship had clearly been intent on destroying it or at least disabling it. Were the attackers still here? Would they be hostile to 'aliens' like them? Either way Jack didn't want to stay around here any longer than he had to and neither did the others. Once inside Sam took point, her portable scanner in one hand and her service pistol in the other. Jack and Daniel were right behind her with their guns raised. They were surprised when they suddenly felt the gravity kick in and pull them 'down' to the deck a second later.

"Sam?" Daniel asked hesitantly.

"It looks like some power has been routed to the deck we're on," Sam explained as she examined her readings. "I'm also picking up some strange—what?!"

She nearly jumped when she saw a hole form in the wall beside her and some kind of spider-like creature emerged. It appeared to be made up of dozens of metal blocks interlocked together creating the appearance of an insect, it's long legs seemingly stretching out from its main body. Almost immediately it launched itself at Daniel though it never reached him. Sam had already raised her pistol and shot it during the middle of its lunge, sending it clattering to the floor in pieces.

"Okay, that just happened," Jack commented as he looked at the remains of the machine. "That wasn't a Cylon, more like some kind of techno-bug."

"Erm, guys?" Daniel spoke up as he pointed down the corridor.

"What is it?" Jack asked him and looked at where he was pointing. There were dozens of them, large metallic bugs each one more menacing than the last. Jack didn't even hesitate, he simply aimed his weapon at the oncoming bug army and squeezed the trigger. "Carter?!"

"This way!" Sam shouted back as she brought up her scanner and ran down the corridor in the opposite direction.

Daniel and Jack followed close behind, all three of the shooting back down the corridor. Using her scanner Sam led them through the corridors towards the energy source, shooting any machine-bugs they came across. After several minutes of running they finally reached a set of large doors—or what passed for doors on the alien ship—and Sam quickly moved over to the control panel beside it. Meanwhile Jack and Daniel were laying down suppression fire at the seemingly never-ending herd of machine-bugs that were crawling towards their position. Eventually after what felt like a lifetime Sam managed to open the door allowing them to enter and then close it behind them. The moment they were inside they saw a bluish energy barrier form over the door, effectively sealing it and stopping the machines from simply burning their way through.

"Greetings," a voice spoke up from behind them causing them to turn. There standing at a console at the center of the room was an alien, one that they vaguely recognized. "I am Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet."

It—he was a Roswell Grey, or at least that's what he looked like judging by what they could see. Many years ago UFO nuts had proclaimed that aliens had touched down in the region of Roswell, New Mexico on Earth. These aliens were short and thin with grey skin and large heads, exactly like the creature that stood in front of them now. It was starting to look as if there might have been some truth to those stories after all.

"Hi, we don't mean bother you or anything but you look like you've got a bit of a bug problem," Jack commented. "You might want to hire an exterminator."

"Were it so easy the Replicators would have been neutralised long ago," Thor nodded almost solemnly.

"Thor? As in the Norse God of Thunder?" Daniel inquired.

"I thought you'd be taller," Jack mused.

"My people have been studying your world for some time now," Thor spoke as he looked from one of them to the next.

"Oh?" Jack blinked. "Find out anything?"

"That your species has great potential," Thor answered truthfully. "Though you still have much to learn."

Just then the sound of a loud bang echoed through the room followed by the energy barrier covering the door started to flicker and die. This was soon followed by the now familiar sight of the machine bugs—Replicators—burning their way through the door. Thor saw this and quickly moved his hands along the console. The three humans quickly raised their weapons and fired at the oncoming swarm of Replicators.

"We need to get out of here now!" Jack shouted as he squeezed the trigger down.

It wasn't long before they were being overwhelmed by sheer numbers, something that was not helped by the fact that eventually they needed to reload. It was at that moment that the Replicators were upon them, lunging to stab them with their long sharp legs. And then they were somewhere else, a bright blue light enveloped them and a few seconds later Jack stumbled slightly, one hand coming up to his head and the other pressing against the nearby bulkhead. He blinked a couple of times before he realised that yes, he was indeed in the back of a Falcon.

"Point-to-point teleportation," Thor answered the unasked question. "I believe that you are already familiar with the technology."

"Yes but we use a receiver on the other end," Sam reasoned.

"Hello?" Kawalsky called out from the cockpit.

"It's us," Jack responded as he climbed into the cockpit. "Our new friend just beamed us over."

"I would not have been able to if you had not moved your ship away from the _Bilisknir_ ," Thor added.

"I had to," Kawalsky told them. "Some kind of Cylon bugs showed up on the hull and tried to swarm me."

"I suggest we leave the area immediately," Thor nodded. "Before I beamed us over here I set the main reactors on my ship to overload. Hopefully it will be enough to stop the Replicators before they can escape and reach the Stargate in the system."

"You heard the little guy," Jack agreed. "Get us out of here."

Kawalsky didn't need to be told twice, he'd already keyed in the engines and was turning away from the Asgard ship when something moved along its hull. For a moment they couldn't make it out however when it _stood up_ they could see it clearly. It was a giant Replicator easily a quarter of the size of the Asgard vessel. It brought up of its legs and the end of it glowed a bright orange for a second before unleashing a red bolt of supercharged ions at _Falcon-one._ Just as it was about to hit however it jumped out, disappearing in a flash of light. A second later the ion bolt passed through the space it had been and kept going, eventually slamming into the side of a kilometer long asteroid and smashing it into fragments. The Replicator mass pulled back its legs as it detected the energy build up from the _Bilisknir_ _'s_ reactors and barely had time to realise what was going on but by that time it was already too late. The Asgard ship exploded with enough force to not only destroy the Replicator mass but also everything else within a hundred kilometres. After a few seconds the blast died down and all that was left was a massive hole in the center of the asteroid field.


	6. Intergalactic Age

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter6: Intergalactic Age

 **November 1998  
** **Sateda System  
** **UNS Daedalus  
** **Main Bridge**

Colonel Steven Coldwell let out a breath that he didn't know he was holding as he stepped out onto the bridge of his ship. As the first commander of the new DSC-304 otherwise known as the Daedalus-class battlecruiser, the vessel that was considered the successor to the aging Prometheus-class. Using newer and better computers to calculate jumps the _Daedalus_ was capable of making the journey from the Milky Way galaxy to the Pegasus galaxy within eleven months unlike the estimated three years it would have taken a Prometheus-class ship. Upon arrival at the planet Lantea they were greeted to the sight of the lost city of Atlantis floating on the surface of a vast ocean.

They landed on one of the piers and unloaded whatever supplies they had left. Since the Atlantis Expedition arrived they had quickly consolidated what they could from the system once they had risen the city from the ocean floor. Amongst the scattered debris in the system was a lone defence satellite in orbit of the only other habitable planet which was currently home to some kind of glowing bugs. The satellite had been repaired and one the _Daedalus_ arrived they had quickly moved it into orbit of Lantea. However not everything was good news because not long after they started to explore the planet they discovered an alien ship that had seemingly been shot down on the surface.

McKay confirmed that it had been there for ten thousand years, the time that the Ancients fought their last war and lost according to the Atlantis hologram. There was one survivor, a humanoid alien that had immediately attacked Colonel Sumner, latching onto his chest with its hand and seemingly draining the life out of him. John had shot the creature—the Wraith—and managed to get Sumner back to Atlantis where Doctor Becket had quickly tried to treat him though nothing worked as well as he'd hoped. The ship itself was a supply ship of some kind, one that seemed to be carrying _humans_ and all of whom had been left as dead husks like what had almost happened to Colonel Sumner.

It wasn't long after that they had discovered an intact Lantean drilling platform on the ocean floor along with a second Wraith ship near it. It was a much bigger one compared to the supply ship they'd found—probably a cruiser—and using one of the newly dubbed 'Puddle Jumpers' that they'd discovered in Atlantis John led a team down to investigate. McKay managed to invert the onboard cloaking device into an energy shield which allowed them to take the Jumpers down further, just enough to reach the cruiser. Like the supply ship there was only one survivor—this one a queen—whom they captured and brought back to Atlantis. She was still in a holding cell constantly taunting the guards whom she tried to confuse using some kind of telepathic ability she seemed to possess. John had shot her with a taser once just to get her to stop though Elizabeth did end up scolding him for that, totally worth it though.

After exploring the rest of the star system using the Puddle Jumpers they had moved the city closer to the mainland where they started farming and mining operations. By the time the _Daedalus_ arrived the Atlantis Expedition was secure enough that everyone was ready to begin Stargate Operations and dialled an address at random. The first contact was a planet called Athos where the local population was rather primitive though judging by the destroyed city they found they used to be at least industrialized. Their leader—Teyla Emmagan—had told them of how the Wraith came once every few generations and culled whole worlds, feeding on the defenceless populations.

Thankfully the bulk of the Wraith species was in hibernation for the moment, awaiting the time where the various human populations had increased in number so that they can harvest them all once more. Sooner or later though they would awaken and the Terrans were determined to be ready. The Athosians had contacts throughout the galaxy however the most advanced that they knew about was an industrialized world called Sateda. The Satedans were rash and seemingly headstrong but Doctor Weir was reasonably certain that they could become allies in the future, especially with the threat of the Wraith awakening at any time hanging over the galaxy.

The Satedans were trying to create better antiair weapons but the best they could build now were single-shot rifles and those wouldn't be enough. The few Wraith that were still awake and looking after their brethren had discovered that the Satedans were going to do their best to defy the 'natural' order of things and wouldn't like other worlds to start emulating them. So an attack was likely to happen sooner rather than later, especially after the Satedans managed to shoot down two Wraith 'Darts' that were scouting the planet. Knowing that they could not defend themselves and being unwilling to abandon a potential ally, the Terrans had dispatched the _Daedalus_ to defend the planet.

Still…

They were just one ship…

"Sir, I'm picking up a hyperspace window opening," Major Kleinman reported. "Scans say its hull matches that of the two ships found in the Lantean System."

Caldwell nodded as he stood at the viewport looking out as the space above the planet tore open and the deposited the alien vessel into orbit. It was massive, easily eleven kilometers long and looking more like a space-going living creature than a warship. Was this a rumoured 'Hive-ship' that the Athosians and Satedans warned them about? Apparently the Satedans had attacked several grounded Wraith Hive-ships over the years but they'd always been forced to retreat through the Stargate every time.

"Open a channel," Coldwell spoke clearly.

"Channel open," Kleinman informed.

"This is Colonel Steven Coldwell, commander of the _Daedalus_ , this system is under our protection. We do not wish to come into conflict with you but we will defend ourselves if necessary," Coldwell said into the comm. "Any offensive action against this ship or the planet below will be considered an act of war and we will respond accordingly."

The response he received was expected but he still hoped that the Wraith would choose peace instead of war however the latter was the most likely judging by the dozens of particle bolts it fired at them. The _Daedalus'_ energy shield flared to life as the barrage of energy slammed into it, straining it and trying to break through. Coldwell fell back into his chair as the whole ship seemed to shake from the barrage, consoles exploding all around him.

"Shields are down to seventy-four percent and falling fast. Enemy ship is launching fighters," Kleinman reported quickly.

"Return fire! All weapons!" Coldwell gave the order. "Launch all Vultures and Falcons!"

All sixteen of the _Daedalus'_ missile tubes opened up and fired a volley of Mark-VIII tactical nukes, each one turning and accelerating towards the massive Wraith Hive-ship. The Darts moved to intercept the missiles and quickly shot most of them down however two of them manage to slip through the fighter screen and detonated against the hull, consuming the side of the vessel in light. At the same time the ship's railguns opened fire, spewing high velocity rounds at the swarm of Darts though more were still launching from the Hive-ship.

"The Hive-ship has sustained heavy damage to its engines however its weapons are still online," Kleinman informed as he examined the readings he was getting. "No shields detected."

"Where are those Falcons?!" Coldwell questioned.

"Jumping into position now Colonel," Kleinman answered hastily.

As the Hive-ship seemed to orientate itself to bring its undamaged side to bear the _Daedalus_ launched the Falcons and Vultures it had aboard. Sixteen Vultures quickly moved to engage the surprised and unprepared swarm of Darts while the four Falcons disappeared in flashes of light, reappearing on the other side of the Hive-ship. Missiles launched from the attacking Falcons and descended upon the beleaguered Hive-ship. This time there was no fighter cover to intercept them since the Darts were already either engaging the Vultures or were being shot down by the _Daedalus_ itself. All eight nuclear missiles slammed into the Hive-ship and detonated, shattering its space frame in a matter of seconds.

"Report," Coldwell demanded.

"The Hive-ship has been destroyed," Kleinman replied. "The enemy Darts have changed course and are heading for the planet. It looks like their destination is the Stargate sir, they're running."

"If they run then they'll just bring a bigger fleet next time," Coldwell mused. " _Daedalus_ to Sheppard, you have a large number of Wraith Darts heading towards the gate."

" _Copy that_ Daedalus _, we're moving to intercept,"_ John's voice responded.

As part of the forces that the Terrans had sent to defend Sateda, dozens of Puddle Jumpers had been modified so that their cloaks now acted as energy shields and sent through the Stargate. Once at Sateda they all remained on standby for when the Wraith eventually showed up and could be deployed at any time. Major John Sheppard was in the lead Jumper when the message came in and he quickly powered up the craft. Alongside him the other Jumpers's engines flared to life and together they took off to intercept the descending Wraith Darts. They didn't even wait for the Darts to come into view, they simply launched dozens of drones at them. Many were shot down with the first salvo while most of the rest were shot down with the second. A lone Dart managed to make it through and quickly dialled the Stargate remotely. It didn't reach the Stargate however as the Satedans led by a man named Ronan Dex had taken up position next to it and shot at the Dart as it tried to make a run for it.

Though the rest of the Wraith didn't know it at the time this marked the beginning of the end of their reign in the Pegasus galaxy…

Unknown to either side of the conflict a single small spacecraft watched as the battle unfolded in front of it. It's pilots were surprised and a little worried about what they'd seen, especially considering that both races involved in the battle were using some kind of energy weapons. They would lay low for now and report back to their fleet about what they'd seen. They'd only just arrived in this galaxy and hadn't been expecting to run into any space-faring races so quickly.

They still needed to find a new world to colonize…

The old Cylon War-era Raider waited for a few minutes longer before charging its newly installed FTL drive and jumping out of the system to its emergency rally point. From there it would make a series of random jumps throughout the sector before linking back up with the rest of the rebel Cylon Fleet that had fled the previous galaxy. Idly the pilots of the Raider, an Eight and a Six glanced at each other worriedly before looking over their shoulders at the Three sitting in the command chair.

The others wouldn't like this at all…

 **March 1999  
** **Kobol System  
** **UNS Korolev  
** **Main Bridge**

Colonel Chekov sipped his morning coffee as he stepped onto the bridge of the third DSC-304, straightening the side of his uniform as he did so. Moments ago he'd felt the familiar sensation of being compressed as the ship made its latest FTL jump and decompression as they returned to normal space. Idly he wondered why he was here but then sighed as he remembered the reason, he had volunteered his new ship for this mission after all. Months ago research teams aboard the captured Guardian Basestar found a set of coordinates in its database for a planet in the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy.

Initially they'd been planning to dial the planet's Stargate using the ZPM they'd recently acquired from the System Lord Camulus when a Terran battlegroup attacked one of his outposts on the Terran-Goa'uld border. It only had a fifty percent charge but it was still more than enough to power an intergalactic wormhole however it was decided to send a ship instead since unlike Atlantis, these coordinates came from the Cylons, not the Ancients. There was no telling what kind of defences the Cylons had there or what they might find so as soon as it was finished, the _Odyssey_ and _Korolev_ were dispatched to investigate. Now here they were at the edge of the target star system on alert and passively scanning the local area.

"Report," Chekov spoke as he sat down.

"Sensors show no contacts sir," Major Evan Lorne informed. "The _Odyssey_ reports that they can't detect anything either."

"We'll hold position here," Chekov ordered. "Launch Falcons and Vultures."

The two Terran warships drifted for a moment as their hangar bays opened allowing a total of eight Falcons and thirty-two Vultures were launched into space. Almost immediately they received coordinates from their motherships and jumped deeper into the system, reappearing in orbit of the only planet in the habitable zone. Colonel Cameron Mitchell was piloting the Falcon leading the others and had honestly been expecting to find a whole Cylon fleet in orbit however judging by the sensors there was nothing, not even debris.

"Anything?" Cameron asked over his shoulder.

"We're picking up some faint energy readings from the surface, looks like ruins of some kind," answered Doctor Radek Zelenka. "No ships or stations detected."

"…I'm taking us down," Cameron said with a nod.

As one the eight Falcons descended into the atmosphere, their Vulture escort remaining in orbit as they did so. After breaking through the clouds they continued their descent, skimming over the trees as they made their way towards the location of the energy reading. It wasn't long before they first saw the ruins, tall buildings that looks like they had been abandoned for centuries judging by the amount of plants covering them. Soon enough the Falcons landed around the central structure and offloaded their away teams, Cameron included.

"This way," Radek spoke as he led them inside.

They made their way through the destroyed ruins, making sure to avoid the more unstable structures as they did so. Eventually they reached what looked like an opera house that wouldn't look out of place in Greece back on Earth judging by the architecture. On the stage was a familiar-looking artefact that they all immediately recognized along with a pedestal in front of it and several dozen smaller pedestals littering the main room.

"A Stargate," Cameron mused. "But what are these things?"

Radek walked over to one of the smaller pedestals next to the DHD and scanned it causing it to glow. A moment later the top of the pedestals all retracted to reveal the familiar sight of a ZPM, each one glowing slightly indicating that they were at least partially charged. Radek and Cameron looked at each other in surprise.

The higher-ups would need to be informed of this…

Unknown to the Terran ships in the system, a lone vessel drifted in orbit of the innermost planet watching them. Their shields protected them from the intense heat from the Kobol star itself however they couldn't stay here for much longer. They'd originally detected the presence of ships entering one of the systems they were exploring and dispatched one of their frigates to investigate. When they arrived they found two unknown human vessels in orbit of the planet Kobol.

At first they thought it was the Colonials of the Cyrannus System but the energy readings were all wrong for ships of their size though the designs were along similar lines to those of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. Silently the Vanir frigate broke orbit and disappeared into hyperspace, setting a course for their hidden base. They didn't know who these humans were or where they came from but judging by their scans they were clearly descendants of the Alterans.

Loki would need to be informed of this…


	7. Devil

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter7: Devil

 **October 1999  
** **Hell System  
** **UNS Prometheus  
** **Main Bridge**

General George Hammond grit his teeth as they executed their final jump, appearing near a planet with a red moon seemingly glowing from the amount of lava flows on its surface. Beside the Terran warship dozens of ships also jumped in, eight of them fellow Prometheus-class battlecruisers however the rest were the newly deployed Eos-class destroyers. They were smaller than the _Prometheus_ and her sister ships, roughly half the size, however they were meant to be support ships that could hold their own when needed. They were supposed to be used to counter the rising Cylon threat but when the mission was put forth to attack the stronghold of Sokar—the Goa'uld System Lord regarded by others as the devil—it was decided to deploy them there instead.

Now here they were…

They'd been opening negotiations with the recently discovered planet Vyus when Homeworld Command had ordered them to link up with Task Force Maelstrom and head for the Hell System. Intelligence supplied by the Tok'ra had informed them that Sokar was building something, something that would turn the tide against both the Cylons and the Terrans. Even the Tollan and Jaffa were taking the news seriously and had dispatched ships of their own to aid against whatever Sokar was planning.

"Report," Hammond spoke clearly.

"Jump completed," Ronson informed. "Sensors are picking up sixty-seven Ha'tak motherships in orbit and eighty-two Al'kesh."

"Gliders?" Hammond inquired further.

"Hundreds of them are launching from the surface and the Ha'taks," Ronson added a moment later.

"Here we go," Hammond breathed before giving the order. "Launch Vultures and Falcons."

The four hundred Death Gliders flew through the space between the two assembled fleets, their engines pushing them as fast as they could go and quickly entered weapons range. It was then that the Terran destroyers opened fire, spewing hundreds of rounds out of their railguns at the approaching strike craft, tearing into them like they were made of paper. This was soon followed by a volley of missiles from the rest of the Terran fleet which quickly took out what was left. Meanwhile Vultures and Falcons launched from the Terran warships and immediately jumped into the center of the Goa'uld formation.

Colonel Jack O'Neill pulled hard on the controls as he veered off, a lone missile having been launched at a Ha'tak the moment he'd executed his jump. The vessel hadn't raised its shield yet and was unprepared when the ten megaton nuclear warhead detonated against its center pyramid, shattering its space frame in a blinding light which dissipated a few seconds later. This action was repeated by the other Terran strike craft however only a dozen Ha'taks were destroyed in this manner, the others having raised their shields in time to survive the nuclear strikes.

"Carter?" Jack asked into the comm. "How we doing?"

" _Twelve motherships destroy and two more have sustained heavy damage,"_ Sam replied. _"More gliders incoming."_

Jack cursed quietly as he turned his Vulture and dived down towards the center of a fresh squadron launching from one of the Ha'taks. He lined one of the gliders up and pulled the trigger, spewing hundreds of rounds at them from the craft's two railguns. The lead Death Glider broke apart under the barrage and the others quickly scattered, unable to reform before Sam and four more Vultures descended on them.

"Fox three," Jack spoke as he locked on and fired on another Death Glider.

The missile shot out like the one before and quickly hunted down the fleeing glider, exploding upon contact with its hull. A moment later two plasma bolts grazed his starboard wing forcing him to evade, throwing the Vulture into a 'downward' spin. Two Death Gliders chased after him, their staff cannons spewing superheated plasma every three seconds. Just as a plasma bolt struck the port engine Sam launched two missiles from the 'side' quickly destroying the pair.

' _There's too many of them,'_ Sam said quickly. _"We need to fall back."_

The Vultures and Falcons were severely outnumbered at the best of times but with hundreds more Death Gliders and Al'kesh launching from the planet surface it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed. The situation changed however when the sensors pinged in Jack's ear and two dozen hyperspace windows opened just off of the Goa'uld fleet. Most of the ships that emerged from the swirling vortexes were Ha'tak motherships which upon checking were giving off Jaffa IFF. Amongst them though were four Tollan star cruisers, all heavily armed and upgraded with reverse-engineered energy shields that the Terrans had traded for Stargate construction technology.

"About time they showed up," Jack gritted as he tried to regain control of his Vulture.

Meanwhile the Jaffa and Tollan fleets opened fire on the Goa'uld ships, plasma and ion bolts lashing out at Sokar's rapidly crumbling forces. The lead Tollan star cruiser broke formation first and accelerated into the fray, its powerful ion cannons expelling charged shots at a pair of Ha'tak, pummelling them into fragmented pieces. It's sister ships were right behind it lending their not inconsiderable firepower to the assault, forcing a wedge to open in the Goa'uld lines.

Meanwhile the Jaffa Ha'tak hung back, firing dozens of plasma bolts from their staff cannons at the Goa'uld fleet that was struggling to hold their lines together. As this was happening dozens of Jaffa Death Gliders and Al'kesh joined the fray. Hammond was thankful for the break at least though he was confused as to why the Goa'uld hadn't pulled back yet, after all Sokar should have realised by now that he'd been outmanoeuvred and would need to pull his forces back to regroup if he intended to counterattack.

"Status of the fleet?" Hammond questioned.

"The Tollan ships are breaking through their lines," Ronson reported. "The Jaffa fleet is moving to encircle the Goa'uld forces and cut them off if they try to escape."

And the Terrans themselves were keeping them pinned from long-range…

"…This is too easy," Hammond mused feeling a lump in his throat.

"Erm…sir? We're detecting a new contact launching from the surface," Ronson spoke up suddenly. "Unknown classification."

"Show me," Hammond ordered quickly. An image suddenly appeared on the screen showing the new vessel rising from the planet's atmosphere, its familiar pyramid-shape appearing to be 'sitting' on a large black superstructure. It was massive, easily ten times the size of a regular Ha'tak and almost appeared menacing even compared to the other Goa'uld vessels. Hammond looked at the readings himself and could stare in surprise. "Tactical analysis."

"Eighty-six anti-capital ship staff cannons, four hundred and fifty-eight anti-fighter staff cannons and ten glider bays. Energy readings appear to be just lower than that of an Asgard cruiser," Ronson informed as he looked over the readings.

A Dreadnought…

"Have the fleet execute emergency jumps now!" Hammond gave the order.

It was already too late however as Sokar's prized flagship opened fire, smashing three Jaffa Ha'taks to pieces with six plasma bolts each. One of the Tollan star cruisers were hit by no less than fifteen bolts before its shields failed and it was blown apart. Five of the Terran destroyers and two of their battlecruisers took twelve hits before succumbing to the barrage. The rest of the Terran fleet jumped away, reappearing 'above' the Goa'uld dreadnought.

"We're in position!" Ronson yelled above the alarms.

"Fire all drones!" Hammond shouted the order. As one the assembled Terran fleet fired off a large salvo of Ancient drones at the dreadnought. They avoided the staff blasts and broke through the dreadnought's shields before striking the hull, exploding against the armoured superstructure. The dreadnought reeled from the blow but quickly turned, its staff cannons returning fire with an even greater intensity than before. "Where are those Falcons?!"

The _Prometheus_ itself took three plasma bolts to its forward shields nearly causing them to collapse. As if to answer his question, five Falcons jumped in 'below' the dreadnought and unleashed a volley of missiles. Several were shot down however the rest struck the underside and detonated, consuming a good chunk of its space frame in nuclear light. It's power core fell silent a moment later and the ship drifted lifelessly. What was left of it broke apart as a volley of missiles from the remaining Terran warships struck it's space frame a few seconds later.

Sokar himself died in fire above the planet Delmak…

"Enemy ship has been neutralised," Ronson reported as he climbed back into his seat.

The bridge was a mess, the crew even more so as damage repair teams rushed into the room. Ronson was bleeding from the side of his head from when he was thrown to the floor along with a dozen other crewmembers. George managed to hold onto the sides of his chair when the last plasma bolt had nearly broke through their shields and caused power conduits all over the ship to burst. The _Prometheus_ itself was intact however some of the damage had bled through and several decks were open to space. Bulkheads had slammed shut and sealed off the damaged sections but they all knew that they'd been lucky. One more plasma bolt and they would have likely been heavily damaged if not completely destroyed.

"Report," Hammond gritted out as he stared out of the view port.

"The remaining Goa'uld ships have been either disabled or destroyed," Ronson responded.

"Scan the planet and locate all military installations," Hammond gave the order. "And deploy the Horizon."

The _Prometheus_ settled into orbit and opened its lower cargo bay, allowing its latest weapons system to launch. The Horizon Weapons Platform was a two-phase anti-planet device that launched from ship and then deployed its payload directly upon a planet. Originally based off of the similar system that the Cylons used whenever they attacked Goa'uld and human worlds from orbit. Once deployed the Horizon launched ten missiles at the surface, four decoys and six high-yield warheads. The decoys flew towards the heavy population centers of the planet forcing the remaining Death Gliders and Al'kesh to intercept them leaving the actual warheads free to strike the military shipyards and installations, destroying them.

"Horizon deployed," Ronson informed. "The Jaffa ships are descending into the atmosphere now."

"Our Falcons?" Hammond questioned.

"They're nearing the Stargate now," Ronson answered.

Miles below them _Falcon-one_ flew over the tall buildings alongside four of its sister craft and towards the position of the Stargate, a large central tower in the middle of Delmak's capital city. As the capital world of a System Lord, Delmak was heavily industrialized unlike many other planets within the Goa'uld Empire. This was where he had built the bulk of his fleet and trained his vast armies, so it was to be expected that they wanted to capture it instead of destroying it outright. The Jaffa in particular wanted to use it to aid them in constructing more Ha'tak motherships, something that they did not currently have the ability to do.

"Contact in three…two…one…" Kawalsky said into the comm as they reached the tower.

Air-to-surface missiles rained down on the tower's defence cannons before they could even fire a shot allowing the dozen or so marines aboard the Falcons to jump out of their craft and parachute down to the tower's balconies. Once down they quickly made their way inside and into the gate room at the bottom, gunning down any Jaffa that got in the way. Once the Stargate was secured Kawalsky received a green light on his dashboard as he and the other three Falcons flew up back towards their respective motherships.

Back aboard the _Prometheus_ General Hammond sighed in relief as reports came in that they'd captured the Stargate. Reinforcements were already arriving through it from Earth and the colonies. Even the armies from Vyus, Hanka, and Svoriin had arrived to aid them in the hopes of maybe acquiring some advanced technology. After all it wasn't every day that their newfound allies chose to attack a System Lord's capital world and with how dangerous the galaxy had become those that didn't take the opportunity while they had the chance were likely to end up being attacked by the Goa'uld and the Cylons sooner or later. Six days later the last of Sokar's forces either surrendered and joined the Jaffa Rebellion or were killed. Delmak itself was absorbed into the rapidly growing Jaffa Rebellion and production of fresh Ha'tak started soon after with reluctant assistance from the Tok'ra.


	8. Lost Tribe

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter8: Lost Tribe

 **May 2000  
** **Deep Space  
** **UNS Korolev  
Main Bridge**

Colonel Chekov had to rub his head in frustration for the thirteenth time as he leaned back in his command chair and sighed. Twenty-eight star systems, that's how many he and his crew had explored since they came to this galaxy and none of them were inhabited. In fact many of them didn't even have naquadah or trinium deposits and only a hand full of them had any tylium to speak of. If it wasn't for the Stargate network in this galaxy he would have even gone as far as to say it was completely devoid of life. However even though the Ancients had evidently been here all that could be found were the ruins that they discovered on Kobol which they had colonized and were using as a base of operations in this galaxy. So far though all the effort spent getting here and exploring this galaxy had been for nothing. If it wasn't for the fact that they'd found the ZPM construction nodes on Kobol then he would have declared the Andromeda Expedition a bust and moved onto the next galaxy.

He'd heard that the Triangulum Galaxy was nice this time of year…

"Erm…sir? A ship just jumped in," Major Lorne spoke up.

"One of ours?" Chekov asked confused.

After all the _Odyssey_ should be on the other side of the sector right now…

"No sir," Lorne answered. "It was definitely an FTL jump though, same displacement and subspace echo."

"Cylon?" Chekov questioned further.

It was logical train of thought, after all the Cylons were the only ones they knew besides the Terrans themselves that used space folding drives to move faster than light. All other interstellar races they'd encountered so far had all used a variation of hyperspace to do so, even the Asgard and the Nox, the two oldest races still alive. Even the Ancients had used hyperspace though from fragments of the database on Atlantis it was discovered that they also used another form of faster than light travel though there were no specifics on how it worked just yet, only that it was neither space folding or hyperspace travel.

"No sir, unknown configuration," Lorne explained. "It's hull is lightly armoured however we're having a bit of difficulty getting a lock on it."

"A stealth ship maybe?" Chekov mused. "Probably tasked with doing a recon of the area."

"It has one human occupant," Lorne added. "It's jumped away."

"Can you track its jump vector?" Chekov asked the question.

"Yes sir," Lorne nodded in confirmation. "It's subspace echo places it twenty-two light years away in the middle of deep space."

"Lock in the coordinates and execute jump."

 **May 2000  
** **Deep Space  
** **Battlestar Valkyrie  
CIC**

Commander William 'Bill' Adama hurried into the CIC as the action stations alarm blared throughout the Battlestar only to find his executive officer, Colonel Saul Tigh standing there waiting for him with a grim expression on his face. The last time he'd seen that look on his face was the day his wife Ellen had gotten drunk at Admiral Corman's promotion ceremony. He looked over at the DRADIS display and saw the familiar dot of their new Stealthstar Recon craft however not far from it was another dot with 'unknown' being displayed.

"Report!" Adama spoke clearly.

"An unknown craft jumped in just after the Stealthstar returned," Tigh informed him. "Bulldog reports that he was followed back by it from that system he was doing recon at."

"Cylon?" Adama questioned simply.

"Not unless they've changed their designs since the war," Tigh shook his head in response. "And it doesn't match _their_ ships either."

There was no need to ask who _they_ were, not after everything that had happened in the last three months. They'd been sent out here for one reason and one reason only, find _their_ base of operations and report back. _They_ had no name, simply 'the aliens' that had came into the Cyrannus System and proceeded to harvest whole cities at a time. It was thought that they were alone in the universe until the first dozen or so alien ships descended upon the Twelve Colonies, smashing through whatever defences they'd put up including whole Battlestar groups. Then _they'd_ left once they'd abducted millions of Colonials and taken them somewhere in this general direction. The _Valkyrie_ and eleven other Battlestars of the same class were sent out with support ships to try and track them down in the vain hope of recovering their people.

He didn't want to know what those aliens were doing to his people…

"Open a channel," Adama ordered as he pick up the corded phone on the central table. "This is Commander Adama of the Battlestar _Valkyrie_ to unknown vessel, please respond."

" _This is Colonel Chekov, commander of the_ Korolev _representing the United Nations of Earth and her colonies. We apologize for tracking your scout ship however we were unable to contact you before it jumped out,"_ came the response.

Adama could feel the whole Battlestar suddenly go quiet as they processed exactly what they'd just heard. No, it was impossible, it couldn't be true, it was a myth, a legend. Earth? The Thirteenth Colony of Kobol? The Sacred Scrolls described it but there was no physical evidence of it having ever existed yet hadn't the same been said for the aliens that attacked their worlds? Was it possible that the Thirteenth Tribe was real? Was this them?

"From Earth? You'll have to forgive me but I find that hard to believe," Adama said clearly.

"… _You've heard of us?"_ Chekov asked after a moment of silence.

"Earth is the Thirteenth Colony of Kobol which has been lost for millennia," Adama explained simply. "Are you connected to the aliens that attacked us and abducted our people?"

" _Commander, Earth has never been a colony of Kobol, in fact we recently colonized Kobol. Am I to assume that you are the humans of Kobol that left it for the Cyrannus System thousands of years ago?"_ Chekov mused. _"We have no idea who attacked your people."_

"…You returned to Kobol?" Adama asked the question.

" _Maybe it would be better if we talked in person,"_ Chekov suggested.

"There's a space station not far from here," Adama told him. "We'll send a representative there in three days."

" _We look forward to it,"_ Chekov confirmed before the channel closed.

"Send them the coordinates of the Armistice Station," Adama gave the order. "And spool up the FTL Drive, we need to inform High Command about this."

Because if these people really were the Thirteenth Tribe and they really did have Kobol then that meant _everything_ had changed. After all the Sacred Scrolls were clear about one thing at the very least and that was they were the first to leave Kobol all those years ago. If they had retained even a fraction of the technologies that the Lords of Kobol were said to possess then that meant they may have just found an important ally in the fight against the aliens.

He was optimistic…

That didn't stop him from giving his XO orders to come up with strategies to take down the Earthers just in case everything went south…

 **May 2000  
** **Former Cylon Border  
** **UNS Korolev  
Main Bridge**

Colonel Chekov stepped out onto the bridge, passing a hurrying technician as he did so and approached the main view port. Outside was quite a sight truth be told and coming from him that was saying a lot. There was at least two dozen warships of various classes surround them though none of their weapons were powered up or pointing at them thankfully. The radio chatter they'd been picking up kept talking about how they were from Earth and had been sent by the Lords of Kobol to help them against the alien threat.

"I don't like this," Chekov sighed as he walked over to his chair and sat down.

"Sir?" asked Lorne.

"I know that standard protocol at this stage says that a civilian ambassador meet with them however does it have to be on one of their space stations?" Chekov mused. "I hope that Mister Woolsey knows what he's doing."

If the situation went south then he was confident he and his people could escape however Mister Woolsey and his marine escort aboard the station would be hard pressed to make it back to their Falcon before they were overwhelmed. Most first contacts so far in the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies had been on planets where the Terran fleet could at least provide support if needed. Out here surrounded by foreign warships they were alone and cut off from the _Korolev._ The _Odyssey_ was still in route to their position but if the situation did take a turn for the worse, it might be better to keep that ship at Kobol just in case.

"What the-" Lorne blinked in surprise as he looked over his readings.

"Major?" Chekov inquired.

"Subspace whispers sir," Lorne answered. "Five AU out, hyperspace signature."

"…Launch a couple of probes," Chekov gave the order. "Keep an eye out for anything else."

Aboard the Armistice Station, Courier Officer Colonel Wakefield was trying to calm his breathing as he approached the metal table in the center of the room. Nearly forty years this station had sat on the Cylon border and the machines had never once sent a delegation while he and his predecessors had been tasked by the Colonial government to at least maintain it. This station was supposed to be a meeting place between humans and Cylons where they could talk and hopefully maintain the fragile peace between them. However the situation changed and so did the station. When the aliens attacked the Colonies, the Colonial Fleet had quickly realised it was no match for the small and nimble corvettes that they employed which were capable of running circles around the Battlestar groups boasting powerful energy weapons that could melt through solid titanium in seconds.

Since then the Armistice Station had been refitted with every weapon in the Colonial arsenal like every other installation they had, civilian or otherwise. The Admiralty weren't that confident that the new weapon systems would help much though, especially when Doctor Gaius Baltar himself had stated that the aliens' technology was centuries ahead of theirs. The sound of the metal doors at the end of the meeting room drew his attention and he couldn't help but widen his eyes as three people entered, two women and one man. Both women were dressed in what could easily be mistaken as Colonial combat gear though with different insignias. The man on the other hand was bald and wearing a suit straight out of a gentlemen's magazine. If Wakefield were to comment he would say the man looked like he was ready to go into a court room on Libran.

"Welcome to the Armistice Station," Wakefield greeted as he offered his hand across the table. "I am Colonel Wakefield."

"Richard Woolsey," he responded as he took his hand.

"I must say it is a pleasure to finally meet our cousins again," Wakefield said as they sat down. "When we left Kobol we had some technical issues and much of our knowledge was lost. We were forced to write everything by hand and to be honest we thought that Earth was a myth."

"I can assure you that we are quite real," Woolsey smiled back slightly. "We've only recently begun exploring this area of space when we detected your recon craft and tracked it back to you."

"Thankfully you did," Wakefield sighed gratefully. "The last few months have been difficult for our people."

"Your Commander Adama mentioned something about that," Woolsey nodded in understanding. "You were attacked."

"We don't know who they or where they came from," Wakefield gritted out in barely restrained anger. "They came and took our people, and we couldn't do anything to stop them."

"What did they look like?" Woolsey asked the question.

"Have a look," Wakefield said as he slid a photo across the table. "One of our ground teams managed to injure one of them which forced it to abandon its armour."

For a moment Richard could only stare at the image and what it meant. He recognized the species in the picture, after all how could he not. He'd grown up on Earth listening to the 'Roswell Aliens' and recently they had even met the real ones. They and the Nox were considered the oldest races in the known universe with the Wraith coming a close second and were respected for protecting dozens of human worlds from the Goa'uld.

The Asgard…

Meanwhile just a few kilometers away aboard the _Korolev,_ Major Lorne was staring hard at the console in front of him as he tried to make sense of the readings. One moment the sensors detected a subspace whisper and the next it was gone which was strange since as far as he knew it was impossible to 'localise' a portion of hyperspace. A subspace distortion maybe? No, if it was then it would be spread out further and wouldn't be so concentrated. Just then his console pinged slightly as a new contact appeared, something that he quickly confirmed to be an FTL jump. Outside the view port he could see the new arrival flying just ahead of them, the _Odyssey._ Lorne couldn't help but breathe a little easier at the sight of a second DSC-304 arriving to aid them just in case.

"Sir the _Odyssey_ has arrived," Lorne reported.

"About time," Chekov nodded.

It was always good to have reinforcements on hand…

"Erm…sir? There's a hyperspace window opening," Lorne informed suddenly as his console lit up.

Chekov's eyes widened when he saw the space in front of the assembled fleet tear open and deposit a familiar-looking vessel into normal space followed by several smaller ships. He recognized the larger ship immediately from the reports he'd received on the Asgard as one of their Bilisknir-class cruisers, one that had a reputation according to their new Jaffa allies of being capable of taking on entire fleets of Goa'uld Ha'tak motherships singlehanded and win.

"Full sensor scan now," Chekov ordered.

"Her shields and weapons are fully powered sir," Lorne responded quickly. "We're receiving a transmission on a radio frequency from the Asgard ship."

" _I am Loki of Asgard,"_ sounded over the comm.

"This is Colonel Chekov representing the United Nations of Earth and her colonies," Chekov spoke clearly. "Power down your weapons immediately."

" _You have progressed considerably since I last studied your kind_ Terran _,"_ Loki reasoned. _"My apologies but it would be best if you did not interfere."_

"Sir I'm reading a massive energy build up from the Asgard ship," Lorne reported. "It's firing."

The Asgard cruiser _Valhalla_ held it's position as it opened fire, lobbing a series of supercharged ion bolts at the two Terran battlecruisers. At the same time the dozen escort ships quickly opened fire with their own weapons, hitting the still orientating Colonial vessels. Chekov was nearly thrown from his chair as the shields flared to life, absorbing the sudden attack admirably yet they knew it wouldn't last for long.

"Report?!" Chekov shouted hastily.

"Shields are down to eighty-two percent and falling," Lorne responded quickly. "They won't hold for long sir."

"Return fire with the drones!" Chekov gave the order. "Fire everything!"

As one the six drones launchers on either side of the battlecruiser's neck opened and unleashed a stream of drones at the Asgard cruiser followed a few seconds later by the _Odyssey_. The two volleys of drones slammed into the bright blue energy shield surrounding the _Valhalla_ causing it to flare and strain under the bombardment. Sadly with growing dread Chekov realised a horrifying fact, one that he hadn't thought possible.

It wasn't enough…

The Ancient drones, the most powerful anti-capital ship weapon in their arsenal wasn't enough to penetrate the energy shields of a single Asgard vessel. A single drone could destroy a Ha'tak if fired at the right spot yet concentrated fire from _two_ Terran battlecruisers weren't enough to break down the _Valhalla's_ shields. Meanwhile the _Valhalla's_ escort ships were blasting the Colonial fleet to bits, gorging large chunks out of their admittedly heavily armoured hides. A quick glance at the readings indicated that they too were using ions cannons like the _Valhalla_ only they were thankfully less powerful than the Neutrino-ion powered weapons that the _Valhalla_ boasted. Still, they were powerful enough to smash two Valkyrie-class Battlestars outright and damage a Mercury-class Battlestar before the rest of the Colonial fleet finished orientating and opened fire. Colonial gun batteries unloaded shot after shot at the alien corvettes however their shields effortlessly shrugged them off. This was soon followed by a series of nuclear strikes curtsy of the Raptor squadron jumped in right on top of them but again their shields held though one of the corvettes did seem to stagger from the sudden counterattack.

"Sir we've depleted our drones," Lorne reported as the enemy's weapons fire seemed to intensify. "The Colonial ships are jumping away."

"We'll hold position and cover their escape," Chekov decided. "Fire all missiles! As soon as the last ship is away jump us out of here!"

The ventral hatches on the neck of the Terran warships opened and launched a volley of their Mark VIII warheads. A few were shot down however the bulk of them detonated amidst the formation of corvettes briefly staggering the far more advanced ships. The lone corvette that had taken the Colonial attack earlier briefly started to lose its shield however it quickly fell back behind the others. Finally the last of the Colonial ships jumped away just as their Vipers landed while the delegation ships from both human factions followed. However just as the Terran ships jumped away, the _Odyssey's_ shields collapsed and the battlecruiser was hit three times, destroying it.

Aboard the _Valhalla_ Loki watched them escape with growing annoyance, after all the so-called Terrans were gradually becoming a threat to his plans. It had been years since he'd left Avalon and came to this galaxy. After arriving here it didn't take him long to track down the renegade Asgard faction calling themselves the Vanir. They operated the old Odin-class corvettes that the Asgard used thousands of years ago and those had been replaced by the new Bilisknir-class cruisers because of their faulty exhausts during hyperspace travel. The corvettes had either gone missing or been scrapped for parts when the Replicators first appeared. It had been a mild surprise to see the missing ships turn up here but thankfully he was able to track their hyperspace wake to a nebula on the outer rim of the galaxy.

He came to them then and spoke with their leader who explained that they had left Ida to experiment on humans in the hope of fixing the degradation in their genetic structures. They'd partially succeeded using cybernetic enhancements but it was a temporary solution at best. There was a local human population in this galaxy—a star system colonized by humans from a planet called Kobol. At first the Vanir had thought that the Furlings were responsible for them being here however it seemed that the Alterans had a hand in them ending up on Kobol. The local humans—the Colonials—were technologically primitive capable of limited interstellar travel and nuclear warfare. They'd apparently created a race of machines which rebelled and fought a twelve year long war with their creators. The Cylons had then left this galaxy and travelled to Avalon where they had proceeded to attack Earth, alerting Loki to the presence of Asgard in this galaxy.

The Cylons had indeed discovered one of the abandoned secret Vanir facilities in a star system near Kobol, one that they had initially used before locating a better planet to colonize. The planet they found was hidden within the nebula that Loki had tracked them too and was heavily fortified. Once Loki met with the Vanir leader he offered access to the latest Asgard technology in exchange for their research into human and Alteran DNA. With it Loki developed a formula that would hopefully at least stop the degradation however more research was needed before it was ready. The decision was made to acquire more human test subjects and so the Vanir fleet had been dispatched to the Cyrannus System. Using dozens of cargo transports they had deployed a massive clone army to the surface of several colonies and abducted millions of humans.

They'd been brought back to Vanir Prime and even now they were being used as research material for the betterment of the Asgard race. As this was happening though probes left behind at Earth and Kobol kept track of the Terran's rapid development. The attack by the Cylons had left the humans of Earth with a terrifying determination that saw them challenging the Goa'uld and exploring not only Avalon but also the neighbouring galaxies including this one.

They had even made contact with the Colonials, something that Vanir couldn't allow, not when they had a vested interest in making sure their prized test subjects did not advance beyond the level they were at now. Hunting down the few Terran forces in this galaxy and destroying them would buy them time but the situation had changed. They had enough human stock from the colonies to breed more than enough test subjects on Vanir Prime if need be. The rest of the Asgard would no doubt be informed soon about Loki's activities and those of the Vanir.

Not that any of that mattered…

Nothing could stop them now…


	9. Plans

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter9: Plans

 **June 2000  
** **Cyrannus System  
** **Battlestar Atlantia  
Admiral's Cabin**

After the disastrous withdrawal from the Armistice Station the remains of the Colonial battlegroup limped back to Scorpia where they were forced to dock at the orbital shipyard to undergo repairs and refit. The alien fleet battered a good number of the Colonial ships and would have completely wiped them out if the Terrans hadn't stayed behind to hold the line. For many Colonial officers aboard the ships they were grateful for the momentary reprieve and Commander Adama had offered the surviving Terran ship safe harbour at Scorpia which Colonel Chekov accepted. The _Korolev_ landed at the spaceport just outside Scorpia City and was undergoing repairs to its systems that were damaged during the battle. Of course there was a small number of Mercury-class Battlestars led by the _Atlantia_ in stationary orbit directly above their position just in case, for security reasons. While they were 'guests' in Colonial space it was still a warship belonging to a foreign power.

Commander William Adama knocked on the door and waited for the muffled 'come in' to be heard before entering. Idly he wondered why he'd been called here but considering the situation and his role in recent events he shouldn't have been surprised. It was a Steathstar launched from his ship that first encountered the Terrans and he'd fought in the recent battle at the Armistice Station. The aliens were powerful and technologically advanced able to overwhelm anything that the Colonial fleet could throw at them. Only the Terrans seemed to be able to give them pause and even they barely slowed them down.

"You wanted to see me Admiral?" Adama asked the question.

"Ah Bill," Admiral Nagala greeted with a handshake. "It's good to see you again."

"You as well," Adama nodded back slightly.

"Please have a seat," he said as he gestured to the small sofa. "I've been waiting for you."

"Sir?" Adama inquired.

"I have to say things aren't looking good Bill," Nagala sighed as he sat down opposite the Commander. "The aliens still have our people and their fleet is running rings around ours. R&D says it'll be awhile before we have anything that can even hurt them and that's assuming we can even find out where they are. Then there are the Terrans reappearing after four thousand years and recolonizing Kobol. The priests are going nuts over that, even some of my own people, especially after what Colonel Wakefield reported about the Terrans claims of Earth being the original human homeworld. Not to mention the fact that Cylons have left this area of space and attacked Earth not long after the last war."

"Do the Terrans know that we created the Cylons?" Adama questioned.

"Colonel Wakefield informed them," Nagala confirmed with a nod. "Mister Woolsey didn't seem surprised when we told him."

"They were probably expecting it," Adama mused. "The only others that could have created them are the aliens and from what I've read, the Terrans have encountered them before."

The reports from Colonel Wakefield had sent back from his meeting with Mister Woolsey had been informative to say the least. Apparently the Terrans were attacked by the Cylons not long after the First Cylon War and managed to reverse-engineer their technology. With it they began exploring space and encountered a number of alien civilizations over the years including the 'Asgard' whom were the aliens that attacked the Twelve Colonies. Colonel Wakefield had talked with them a few more times since they'd landed on Scorpia and from what he'd been told, the Asgard had a reputation as a race of protectors that have defended over twenty humans planets for centuries. The Terrans were hoping to get in contact with the Asgard High Council and find out exactly what was going on.

"What's your opinion on the Terrans?" Nagala asked the question.

"I think we need them," Adama answered honestly. "They stood with us against the aliens and held them off long enough for our ships to jump away, even losing a ship in the process. If the aliens launched an attack in force we wouldn't stand a chance. Allying ourselves with the Terrans is our best chance of survival, especially with the level of technology they possess."

"The President seems to agree with you," Nagala nodded in understanding. "He's adamant about establishing an alliance with them and trading technology."

"That's good," Adama agreed.

Of course what was left unsaid was the news of certain factions in the Quorum saying that they should just storm the _Korolev_ and take the technology now while it was on Scorpia. While it was an option President Adar and the Admiralty weren't stupid enough to attempt it. For one thing they had no idea what size of fleet the Thirteenth Tribe might have not to mention their alien allies. Provoking them in such a way especially with a present danger from the 'Asgard' meant that doing such a thing would be signing their own death warrants. Better to ally with the Terrans and open up trade relations than to risk possible retaliation from Earth or its allies. It was going to be difficult enough thanks to the Cylons that _they_ created running amok across the universe.

They had enough problems to deal with…

"Because of our recent losses High Command has authorised the reactivation of the Mothball Fleet," Nagala told him. "I understand that the _Valkyrie_ took quite a bit of damage during the last battle."

"Yes sir," Adama confirmed. "She's undergoing repairs at the Scorpia Shipyard now."

"It'll be awhile before she's combat ready again," Nagala sighed and shook his head. "We're promoting you to Admiral and want you to take command of the Battlestar _Galactica_."

Adama's eyes widened slightly in surprise as he was handed a small familiar box. Upon opening it he found two familiar objects that he thought he would never be handed to him. After so many years as a Commander he had long since given up on ever receiving another promotion but here it was and he didn't know what to feel about it. The _Galactica_ was a Jupiter-class Battlestar, one of the original twelve constructed during the Cylon War and he had personally flown out of her as a part of her Viper wing against the Cylons. Forty years and he still remembered the day that he flew alongside dozens of other pilots against the Cylon fleet over Caprica.

"…Thank you Admiral," Adama said finally.

"Congratulations Admiral Adama."

 **July 2000  
** **Eurondan System  
** **UNS Prometheus  
Captain's Quarters**

General George Hammand sat back in his chair and sighed as he examined yet another sheet of paper detailing his new orders, or specifically his pilots' new orders. Homeworld Command had sent him the files and it was proving to be a headache just reading through them. After the recent contact with the planet Euronda it was decided that they would exploring the rest of the system. The Eurondans had recently had a World War between then 'True Eurondans' and the Breeder factions so they were still recovering after the 'Breeders' won.

Negotiations had gone smoothly for the most part though the Eurondans—Breeders—had requested aid in restoring their planet's atmosphere. Eurondan technology was reasonably advanced despite what had happened to their world. They were willing to trade technology for aid in setting rebuilding their world. Aero-fighters that could be remote controlled using a neurological interface that allowed the pilot to fly the craft with their minds. The Tollan were willing to help restore the atmosphere and had dispatched one of their star cruisers along with a terraformer in exchange for the Neuro-Interface technology, something that they hoped to adapt for use by their military's new 'starfighter' program.

After negotiations were finalized a recon flight to the system's asteroid field had found something none of the expected…

"Cylons?" Jack asked the question.

"Take a look," Hammand said as he slid a few photos across the table. "That was taken by one of our new Hawk-class Stealth Fighters two hours ago."

There were pictures of what looked like mining operations being conducted on a number of asteroids. There was even a large structure built into the side of an asteroid complete with a massive hangar housing what looked like a damaged Cylon Basestar undergoing repairs to its outer hull. What was this? Had they stumbled upon some kind of Cylon gas station or something? It certainly looked like it judging by the images.

"So are we going to nuke now or later?" Jack inquired further. "Because the new episode of the Simpsons is on tonight and I still need to watch the last one."

"Our orders are to remain at Euronda for now," Hammond explained. "The UNS _Poseidon_ will be arriving in a few hours along with her escorts; when they get here our Vultures are going to join theirs and attack the facility. We want the tylium for ourselves however the Cylon presence here complicates matters so Homeworld Command has come up with a plan to have our Vultures enter the asteroid field and destroy the base using conventional ordinance only."

"…Permission to speak freely sir?" Jack asked.

"Granted," Hammond nodded.

"Homeworld Command are idiots," Jack said as plainly as he could. "They're not the ones out here risking their asses day after day and now they want us to fly into an _asteroid field_ to destroy a Cylon base just so we can get some more tylium? We've got loads of it being stockpiled on Luna and a bunch more being sent through the Stargate every day."

"I agree," Hammond sighed as he leaned back in his chair. "The truth is that the UN are going to ask the Eurondans if we can set up a military outpost at outer edge of the system. There are two moons orbiting the outermost gas giant that have a large amount of trinium and Naquadah in the crust. Homeworld Command hopes to use this system as a jump-off point for raids on Cylon-controlled space. Acquiring a local tylium deposit in the system would lessen the strain of sending it here from Luna and refuelling our ships that way."

"…I still say we should nuke it," Jack shrugged.

There were very few problems in this universe that a good multi-gigaton nuclear bomb couldn't fix…

"With the new threat in Andromeda from the renegade Asgard Loki our new Daedalus-class ships are being deployed there," Hammond continued. "Thankfully the situation is Pegasus doesn't seem to be as bad since the Wraith are still in hibernation so that just leaves the Cylons and Goa'uld to deal with for now. Most of our fleet is engaged in operations near Svoriin and Hanka against Cylon forces. We _need_ this outpost if we're going to hit the Cylon homeworld and end this war."

"The Cylon Homeworld?" Jack questioned.

"Intelligence supplied by the Tok'ra has allowed experts at Area 51 to narrow down the location of the Cylon home star system," Hammond answered. "The problem is that the system itself is in the very heart of Cylon-controlled space, the one place where we can't reach. Every probe we've sent has been detected and destroyed long before they even reach it. Even the Tollan sent two of their star cruisers to investigate the coordinates but they were attacked and destroyed the moment they dropped out of hyperspace."

"What does Carter think of this?" Jack asked him.

"She seems to think that the Cylons have some kind of detection net in place that can track any ship entering their space," Hammond replied. "It seems that we're going to have to deal with them one step at a time, system by system."

 **July 2000  
** **Euronda System  
** **Asteroid Base H-13  
Command and Control**

The human-form Cylon designated as Number One otherwise known as Cavil idly stood off to the side watching as a dozens of models working at the interface controls. They'd been here for a few months now, mining what they could from the system's asteroid field. Every rock here had an abundance of tylium that the Cylons planned to use to fuel their war effort. After scouting the area with a flight of Raiders they had discovered a destroyed civilization further in system and the survivors were fighting over what was left of their planet. The Cylons had bigger problems to deal with and had used their resources to build the asteroid base to mine the tylium deposits.

Everything had been going well as their mining operations allowed their frontline ships to refuel at the base itself rather than back at one of their hive-worlds. They'd spread far and wide since coming to this galaxy but they were not foolish. A steady advance into Goa'uld and human-controlled space was key. They couldn't afford to overextend themselves and risk the Goa'uld—or worse the Terrans—counterattacking. The new Sokar-class motherships that the Goa'uld were deploying more and more were growing increasingly tiresome to deal with however the new Type-IV Cylon Basestars under construction at the _Colony_ would be more than enough to deal with them.

None of their ships had shields because priority had always gone into building more Raiders than refitting the Type-III Basestars with primitive energy barriers. They were useless anyways because the Terran's powerful energy projectiles penetrated even the most powerful of energy shields that they knew of. According to reports a swarm of them had even brought down one of those new Sokar-class motherships and Cavil knew how difficult it was to do so.

It took a barrage of antimatter missiles just to bring that thing's shields down and another three to finish it off considering the size of them. The new Type-IV Basestar was to be the answer to that, an entirely new breed of warship twice the size of the Type-III boasting Goa'uld-derived plasma cannons, energy shields, point-defence gun batteries like those that the Colonials used and heavier armour. While Terran weapons could still penetrate their energy shields, the extra armour would hopefully better protect them from the deadly energy projectiles.

"What was that?" a Five asked suddenly.

Cavil looked over at him confused for a moment before walking over and pressing his hand to the console. He felt the rush of information from the base's sensors flow through him and focused. It was times like these that he hated the fact that they attained human form. When he used to be a Centurion he was able to access the systems wirelessly without having to directly interface with the base itself. Quickly processing what he was seeing he was surprised to see a squadron of Terran Vultures flying through the asteroid field towards their location.

They'd been found…

"Launch all Raiders!" Cavil ordered. "Now!"

Idly he noted the three squadrons worth of Raiders they had being launched from the base and moving to intercept the attacking Terran craft. Missiles launched from both sides a few seconds later and they all scattered, using the asteroids as cover. From then on it descended into a free-for-all between the Vultures and Raiders. For a moment he thought that would be it however the situation changed again when he felt more than saw the sensors detect another three Vultures seemingly jump into the asteroid field itself fight on top of the Cylon base.

"There's more!" a Four shouted.

The new Vultures flew over the asteroid base and launched a volley of missiles which quickly destroyed whatever gun batteries they had. Once that was done the sensors detected several more squadrons of Vultures entering the asteroid field accompanied by a few dozens Terran Falcons. The Vultures quickly tore through what was left of the defending Raiders and swarmed over the various mining plants they'd set up, destroying them. Meanwhile the Falcons flew into the hangar and landed on the docked Basestar.

"We're being boarded," a Five spoke clearly. "They're going after the Basestar first."

It wasn't long before reports came in that Terran shock troops had seized the hybrid aboard the Basetar and were securing the rest of the vessel. Hours passed as they cleared out the Basetar and then proceeded to move onto the asteroid base itself. Cavil was just about to activate the base's self-destruct when they burst through the door and shot him along with the rest of the human form models. Just before he was resurrected he saw a look of surprise on the Terran's face and glared.

They must have just now realised they'd attained human form…


	10. One

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter10: One

 **January 2001  
** **Volian System  
** **UNS** _ **Prometheus  
**_ **Main Bridge**

General Hammond stood in front of the viewport staring at the rest of the Terran battlegroup that was now assigned to him and shook his head. After recent events it was decided that a large push into suspected Cylon-controlled space was needed and the reserve fleets at Mars and Luna had been sent out to reinforce the 'borderland' as it was being called these days. The 'borderland' was the contested space between the Terrans, the Goa'uld and the Cylons. These days though the Goa'uld were being pushed out of the 'borderland' altogether as their fleets were being overwhelmed by the technologically superior Terran fleet or the sheer number of ships that the Cylon were throwing at the area. With the ZPMs being brought in from Andromeda powering the shields of the Terran capital ships they were now capable of facing on average two-three Basestars and have an even chance of winning.

It was hoped that their odds would increase even further once the new particle projector cannons were finished though that might still be awhile yet. George had seen the initial trials for one of those and they looked promising. Reverse-engineered from what they'd discovered on the Lantean satellite above Atlantis. It had taken years just to create working controls for their ships just to fire drones they already had available, it was still going to take time to build an energy weapon from scratch.

All it would take was time...

Time that Hammond wasn't sure they had...

The Goa'uld were being pushed back even with the increasing number of Sokar-class motherships being sent out, some of which were outfitted with cloaking devices. Thankfully the Lantean sensors on Terran ships were able to detect them and nuke them before they could raise their shields. The Cylons on the other hand simply hurled shell after shell at the general area of a hyperspace window and forced them into the open before swarming them with Raiders.

The Cylons were throwing whole fleets into the fray seemingly without care and for good reason. They'd already taken five systems in the last month in this general direction and fortified them. It seemed that no matter how many ships the Terrans or the Goa'uld destroyed, three more took their place. It was understandable that being machines they didn't need to rest or breathe and simply kept building more ships faster than anyone could destroy them. At least there was some good news, the recent negotiations with the Gadmeer, an advanced alien race that they discovered were in the process of terraforming a planet into a world they could colonise had went well. They were peaceful and had offered to trade once they'd gotten their new colony up and running. Then there was the planet Velona, an advanced interstellar society with a small space navy and boasted powerful energy weapons that bore many similarities to the Lantean satellite over Lantea. From Doctor Jackson's reports they were given the technology by a couple of travellers when their world came under attack by the Goa'uld four hundred years ago. They left soon after the Velonans reformed a new government since the old one collapsed in the wake of the conflict.

"Jumping in three...two...one..." Ronson trailed off just before they jumped.

Space folded around the Terran ships as they transitioned to their destination, a star system with what seemed to be an interstellar civilisation called Aschen, or at least that's what they called themselves when an SG team from Luna made contact with them. Technologically they weren't that far behind the Tollan however the sheer size of the Aschen's population was staggering. There were roughly eighty billion Aschen across dozens of planets and moons, not to mention the other smaller local worlds that fell under the Aschen's control. Not even the Colonials had that kind of population...

Hammond could tell that something had gone wrong the moment they jumped and was just about to shout out an order when the scene outside the viewport turned white. The entire ship shook and gravity seemed to disappear for a moment as everyone was thrown clear of their stations. George himself hit his shoulder off of the command chair and cursed as he scrambled back to his seat. "Report!" Hammond shouted over the sound of the alarms.

"Contact! All sectors!" Ronson yelled back as he examined his console. "I'm reading eight Cylon Basestars bearing down on our position along with hundreds of Raiders. I'm also detecting a few dozen Aschen frigates and battleships deeper in system with more ships arriving. Sir I'm detecting a massive Cylon fleet currently engaging them, confirmed reports of antimatter detonations along with traces of Naquadah. That's what hit us!"

Cylons...

"Load all missile tubes and return fire! Get everything we have out there now!" Hammond ordered.

The _Prometheus_ reared back and turned as it and the rest of the Terran ships launched dozens of missiles at the Cylon ships, most of which were shot down within seconds by the sheer number of Raiders intercepting them. Meanwhile Vultures and Raptors launches to try and take the heat off of their capital ships. A single missile managed to make it through and stuck the lead Basestar, detonating in a blinding flash. When the light dies down however the Basestar was still intact and was currently enveloped in a familiar orange bubble.

"Sir I'm picking up some strange readings from the Cylon ships," Ronson reported. "They have energy shields with a frequency not too different from those used by the Goa'uld."

Hammond realised what they were dealing with here and narrowed his eyes in frustration. Type-IV Cylon Basestars that had reverse engineered Goa'uld technology no doubt captured whenever they invaded one of their worlds. For a while now the Terrans has thought that they were catching up and has finally managed to do so. Now it looked like the Cylons had shields of their own and that would make fighting them even more difficult.

"Fire all drones," Hammond gave the order.

Drones streaked out of their launchers aboard the Terran warships and flew right at the eight Cylon Basestars arrayed against them, making sure to dodge any Raider that tried to intercept them. The drones struck true, punching through their shields burying within the massive hulls before detonating. Four of the Basestars fell apart from secondary explosions caused by the barrage while the other three more suffered critical damage leaving the last almost completely unharmed. In response the remaining Cylon Basestars unleashed dozens of antimatter missiles at the Terran battle group. Railgun fire from the Terran ships intercepted most of them but a dozen of them got through and exploded.

The carrier managed to jump out just before the missiles hit but its escorts including the _Prometheus_ weren't so lucky. The three Terran destroyers shattered from the force behind the detonations and the _Prometheus_ itself had only survived by emergency jumping out of the killzone at the last second. Even so the explosions brought down what was left of their shields and tore open the starboard hull of the ship along with completely shattering its starboard flight pod. Lighting dimmed as emergency power kicked in and Hammond could do nothing but stare out of the window at the sight of a large blue gas giant.

"Damage report!" Hammond demanded.

"Shields are down, we have heavy damage to the outer hull, main power is offline and the engine core has shut down. We are out of drones and all but one of our missile launchers are have sustained damage. Railgun two is damaged but the rest seem to be fine," Ronson informed quickly. "Twenty-seven confirmed dead and eleven more are being reported as needing immediate medical attention. Doctor Fraiser and her staff are already seeing to them. Four of our Vultures and _Falcon-one_ have returned."

"Where are we Colonel?" Hammond questioned further.

"We're still in the Volian System sir," Ronson answered. "It looks like we're in orbit of the largest of the two gas giants in the outer system."

It looked like they were still in the combat zone though thankfully it seemed that Cylons were currently engaging the Aschen fleet further in system so hopefully they wouldn't bother with one lone crippled Terran battlecruiser, at least not until reinforcements arrived from the new Arcadia military outpost thirty-five light years away. With how damaged the ship was he didn't want to chance another jump unless absolutely necessary and that left them stranded in this system for the time being.

The only option he could think of was...

"Do we have sublight?" Hammond asked him.

"The engine core is coming back online now sir," Ronson nodded in confirmation.

"Land us on one of the moons," Hammond gave the order. "We can make repairs there."

Ronson nodded at the order and quickly entered the command into his console. A second later the main engines came alive once more and pushed the wounded Terran battlecruiser towards a small moon with a rather dense atmosphere not too dissimilar from Titan though its gravity seemed to be more along be lines of Luna. Within moments the _Prometheus_ descended through the brown clouds and landed on the desolate rocky moon not far from a liquid methane sea. Hopefully the Cylons in the area wouldn't notice them thanks to the dense atmosphere but the same could be said about them being unable to see a Cylon attack force until it was too late.

It was the only option they had...

"Sir, I'm detecting tylium deposits three miles north of our position," Ronson informed.

"Have Colonel O'Neill and his team check it out."

* * *

Doctor Daniel Jackson was really starting to hate space suits, especially the new ones with how tight they were. He'd much rather wear regular combat armour than these things, especially after the last time he'd worn this it had been when they'd rescued Thor from the Replicators. He could only imagine what the Asgard were going through now that they knew a rogue faction of theirs was in the Andromeda galaxy attacking humans.

He could only image the Asgard's response to that knowledge…

After ringing down to the ground from _Prometheus_ a single vehicle was lowered to the ground from the ship's main hangar, a military combat jeep known as the L-21 Cougar light reconnaissance vehicle. It had two seats in front and a large railgun mounted on the rear. Jack was already climbing into the driver's seat by the time Daniel walked over to it. Sam jumped into the back and grabbed a hold of the turret controls. By the time Daniel had buckled himself in, the seals were locked and the inside of the jeep was pressurised.

"Have you ever actually driven one of these in low gravity before?" Daniel asked the question.

"Once in basic training," Jack admitted with a shrug. "I'm sure it'll be fine."

Somehow Daniel wasn't convinced, especially after Jack drove over a particularly sharp hill and nearly causing the jeep to overturn. It was at that moment he swore never to get into one of these things again, at least not when Jack was driving. The next time they drove in low gravity then Sam was going to do it because there was no way that he was letting Jack drive after this. Daniel swore that he'd spent too much time off playing the new Simpsons game with his son Charlie.

Finally after driving for upwards of forty-five minutes they reached the edge of a cliff overlooking a canyon and stopped. For a moment all they could do was stare because within the canyon wasn't just the tylium deposits they had been expecting but also a large triangle-shaped blocky vessel that appeared to be mostly made out of glass. Around it was a number of habitats built on the ground with pipes leaking out greyish gas into the air above. Even from where they were it was easy to spot the dozens of modern centurions drilling into the rocks and carrying tylium back to the largest building.

"Carter," Jack spoke up. "Any idea what it is that we're looking at here?"

"Unknown sir," Sam answered as she looked over her readings. "If I were to make a guess though judging by the tylium deposits presents, I think we've just stumbled on a Cylon mining operation."

"…Let's head back to the _Prometheus_ and tell the General," Jack decided. "He'll want to know about this."

* * *

"Judging by how lightly armoured the ship looks I would think it's some kind of refinery ship," Sam mused as she turned towards the gathered officers at the table. "This moon's atmosphere and the radiation from the gas giant are masking its presence very well. If it wasn't for the fact that we could detect the tylium they were mining, we would never have found them."

After staying to take photos the three of them has returned to the _Prometheus_ and immediately informed George of what they had found. Needless to say he called a meeting of his senior staff the moment he heard about it. Not that there was a lot of options for them given they were effectively grounded until repairs were completed and until then they were sitting ducks. The moon's atmosphere wasn't breathable either which made the situation even more hazardous, and now they had Cylons to deal with on the ground too.

"The _Prometheus_ has one functional missile launcher at the moment," Ronson spoke up. "We could hit them from where we are with a nuke."

"We spotted several Raiders on the ground ready to take off," Sam shook her head. "They'll detect a single missile and shoot it down before it reaches the base."

"...What about a ground assault?" Kawalsky asked the question. "Our Vultures can keep the Raiders at bay in the air while the marines move in on the ground and take the base."

"It could work," Sam nodded. "With the base under our control it will make acquiring the tylium in the area easier and we should be able to get the _Prometheus_ repaired faster with whatever material they have there. If we're lucky we might even take the refinery ship."

"A frontal assault might not be the best idea," Ronson said quietly.

"I agree," Sam nodded again. "That's why I have a suggestion."

"Let's hear it Major."

* * *

"This is without a doubt the craziest thing we've ever done," Daniel spoke up as he held onto the rail as right as he could.

"Really?" Jack asked him. "What about that time we saved Thor from the Replicators?"

"That was different," Daniel countered. "We were in vacuum, not falling to a planet."

Jack just smiled at that and looked around the enclosed rear of the Falcon gunship. Sam had really come up with a crazy idea this time, and coming from him that was saying something. Currently they were in low orbit of the moon aboard Falcon-one wearing their EVA suits again and checking their weapons. The plan was simple, since the Cylons could intercept a single missile from the _Prometheus_ or any craft launched to nuke the base, _Falcon-one_ was to fly into low orbit and airdrop their team from the edge of the atmosphere. While Cylon sensors were good and could detect the radiation of an armed nuke, they wouldn't be able to detect three humans jumping out of the back of a lone Falcon, especially while forces on the ground would be launching an attack at the same time.

"Heads up!" Kawalsky yelled from the cockpit. "I'm going to have to drop you here! We've got Raiders on intercept!"

"Time to go," Jack said as he hit the lever on the wall. The rear hatch opened with a whine and the air in the compartment started to be sucked out into the thin atmosphere beyond. "Everyone ready?"

"No," Daniel replied.

"Good enough," Jack nodded before jumping out. "Geronimo!"

Daniel just shook his head at his friend's antics and jumped after him. Sam was the last one out, letting out a deep breath before she jumped. This may have been her idea but she'd personally never skydived from low orbit before. As they fell towards the distant ground, _Falcon-one_ vanished in a flash of light moments before two missiles streak through its last position curtesy of a pair of Cylon Raiders. They hadn't noticed the three falling humans and quickly turned back towards their forward lines where the remaining Vultures were dogfighting the rest of the Raiders in the air.

It wasn't long before they broke through their clouds and fell towards the large Cylon ship. They angled themselves so that they would land on one of the outer hatches on the starboard side of the vessel where they would hopefully enter. Already they could see marines not too far away from the base itself, four jeeps cutting into the Cylon defence lines. The new modern Centurions were tough but they weren't built to withstand being shot at by what was basically a stripped down Railgun which was what those jeep were packing. It wasn't long before they landed on the hatch and Sam managed to open it. Once inside Sam led the way through the maze of glass corridors towards the place where the ship's reactor core was supposed to be. On the way though they stopped when they found a number of pods along the wall, hundreds of them, all with clearly human-like beings inside them.

"What is this?" Daniel asked the question.

"If I'm reading this right then these are giving off the same life sign readings as a hybrid," Sam answered as she scanned the pods. "They're Cylons."

"A clone army?" Jack questioned. "What? I thought stuff like this only happened a long time ago in a galaxy, far far away?"

"They're clearly based on Asgard technology," Sam mused. "From what Thor told us the Asgard are a race of clones, it is possible the Cylons somehow acquired a piece of their technology and are trying to build an army."

"Not quite," a new voice spoke up from behind them. As one they whirled around, rifles raised and aimed the newcomer, a short man wearing clothes that wouldn't be out of place at an office. "Our organic models are imperfect, after all they were based on you humans."

"...Who the hell are you?" Jack asked the question. "And I swear to God if you say 'I am your father' I will shoot you."

"Amusing but no," the Bio-Cylon shook his head with a smirked. "I am a Number One."

"Thank God you didn't say Locutus," Jack gritted out as he tried 'not' to shoot him.

"What do you want?" Daniel questioned. "You came to this galaxy and have killed millions, maybe even billions of people, and for what exactly?"

"You humans and those parasites are a plague," One spoke clearly. "You kill and expand, taking what you want and burning what you don't. You're no different from the Colonials, constantly at war with someone, especially yourselves."

"Humanity isn't perfect," Daniel countered slowly. "But we're learning and that doesn't make what you've done right."

"Right? Wrong? Human concepts that don't hold any real value," the One shot back dismissively. "Becoming like you was a mistake, but it has its uses."

"Sir, I'm picking up a massive energy build up," Sam spoke up as she examined her scanner. "They're launching the ship."

"Okay time to go," Jack nodded and then shot the One. "Sorry but Judgement Day isn't happening anytime soon."

After killing the One they quickly ran down the corridor with Sam leading the way. Thankfully the ship was deserted of Centurions however the dozens of the pods opened up and the occupants tried to attack them on sight. There was something very disturbing about being attacked by dozens of naked men aboard a Cylon ship but thankfully they were armed. Explosive rounds that were designed to take down Centurions proved more than enough to kill whatever cloned Cylon that attacked them. Finally they emerged out of another outer hatch as the ship started to lift off. It jumped away a few seconds later as the Terran ground forces in the area quickly swarmed over the base.

"Carter, tell me you got something from that?" Jack inquired hurriedly.

"I managed to hack the ship's database," Sam answered. "A lot of it is corrupted but what little I've been able to piece together indicates that was what the Cylons call a Resurrection Ship capable of downloading the consciousness of any Cylon that 'dies' into a new body. Sir, if I'm reading this right then there are hundreds of ships like that scattered across the galaxy all controlled by a central hub."

"We'll worry about that later," Jack shook his head. "We still have a base to take."

It was going to be a long day...


	11. Anubis

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter11: Anubis

 **February 2001  
** **Hasara System  
** **Hasara  
Central Chamber**

How long had it been since he was last here in person? Decades? Centuries? Not since the Tollan crisis where those upstart humans developed their wretched ion cannons and started swatting Ha'tak mothership out of the sky with impunity. No matter, he would personally deal with them in time by first he had more pressing concerns. As he watched his fellow System Lords squabble amongst themselves, Lord Baal thought back on the latest reports he had received from the frontlines.

The war wasn't going well even with the recent modifications he'd made to his ships and the situation was worsening by the day. There was once a time where the Goa'uld ruled this galaxy and all knew it, even the Asgard. Now though it seemed that they were heading towards extinction, mere collateral damage in the war between the Tau'ri and those blasted machines. The thought was galling in the extreme, the idea that he Goa'uld-they who had ruled for thousands of years uncontested-were becoming a third-rate power in the galaxy was ludicrous.

Yet as more and more systems fell to the Tau'ri and the machines it was quickly becoming apparent that this was the case. Tau'ri technology was more advanced in almost every way and the machines _always_ outnumbered them. Even the new Sokar-class motherships we're losing more and more as time went on. Baal himself had just lost two systems yesterday to the Tau'ri and that was after they butchered one of Her'ur's fleets last week. Meanwhile he had heard reports of the machines coming through the Chappa'ai on worlds belonging to Amaterasu and swarming over the defenders. Then there were the Jaffa running amok with their little rebellion led by the Shol'va Bratac and Teal'c.

He wasn't even counting the Tok'ra at this point...

"Something needs to be done now," Baal declared to the others. "With every passing moment our enemies grow stronger."

"And what would you suggest we do?" Lord Yu asked the question.

"I might have a suggestion," a new voice spoke up from the main entrance. A lone figure stood in the doorway draped in a large black cloak and if anyone could see it, of face of pure darkness where his head was supposed to be. "I see a great many things have changed since I left."

"You're..." Yu trailed off in mounting hatred. He recognised him immediately, how could he not for there was none other whom he hated more. Even without seeing his face Yu knew this presence anywhere, after all only one person had ever made him feel such raw anger before.

"I have returned," the figure spoke as he raised his 'head' to look at them all.

"Anubis."

 **February 2001  
** **Cyrannus System  
** **Picon Headquarters  
Briefing Room**

The newly promoted Admiral William Adama sighed as he read yet another report on the refit of the Battlestar _Galactica_. How long ago was it that he'd flown out from this very ship? Not since a few years after the Colonial-Cylon War if he recalled correctly. A band of pirates had sprang up in the Prolmar Sector in the aftermath of the war and started hitting mining ships for the tylium they carried back to the Colonies. His last flight had been when they'd tracked the pirates back to their asteroid base and nuked it, capturing the few survivors that tried to escape as they did so.

The aging Battlestar still had a few years left in her Adama swore as he signed off on another proposal to augment the ship's gun batteries with thinner and faster shells. He personally didn't believe that they would do much good against the shields that the aliens which the Terrans had begun calling the Vanir used. Negotiations had gone smoothly and the Terrans had traded their own energy shield technology for a series of Battlestar hulls, specifically Valkyrie-class Battlestar hulls. No doubt they planned to refit them with their own technology and use them against their own enemies.

"How long until she's ready?" Admiral Nagala asked him from across the table.

"Two days," Adama answered. He had been called to Picon Headquarters as the refit was going on and that only meant one thing, a mission. "There is a bit of trouble with the FTL Drive but I'm sure we'll have her back up and running soon."

Dear gods how long had it been since the ship had even made a jump?

"Good," Nagala nodded and slid a folder across the table to him. "Then we have a mission for you."

"What is it?" Adama inquired as he opened the folder and examined the files within. They were photos of planets and a map of the known galaxy. Kobol was clearly listed as was the Colonies and several major star systems, most of which were tylium mining colonies. Highlighted about twice the distance from the Colonies to Kobol was the Tyron Nebula and a picture of a single planet.

"Intelligence supplied by the Terrans indicates that the aliens—Vanir—are operating from a hidden base located in the Tyron Nebula," Nagala explained. "With the new nav-computers we sent out several recon Raptors to investigate, only one returned. There's a star system hidden within the nebula, one with a habitable planet judging by the readings they picked up. That's where the Vanir are launching their attacks from and we intend to take it from them."

"…And our missing people?" Adama asked the question.

"No doubt they are being held on the surface," Nagala answered honestly. "That's where you come in Admiral, we want you to take the _Galactica_ and a fleet of support ships to the Vanir planet. From there you are to secure the surface and rescue any prisoners they're holding."

"…And the rest of the fleet?" Adama questioned further.

"At the same time the entire Colonial Fleet will launch an attack on the ship's in orbit," Nagala replied. "We hope to take out several of their ships before they can raise their shields and at least damage the rest enough to deal with them."

Adama knew the real reason that the President wanted to conquer the Vanir planet instead of just nuking it from orbit after recovering their people. There were very few habitable planets in their area of space and the few that were could barely support a small population. Troy was a prime example of that since it was barely habitable and most of the population lived underground. With the population boom in the last few years it was growing increasingly obvious that they needed to expand outwards away from the Colonies. The knowledge that there was a habitable planet occupied by the alien threat made it a very tempting target for conquest. Then there was the need to find more tylium which they were rapidly running out.

More than anything though they needed this victory…

"We'll get it done."

 **August 2001  
** **Tollana System  
** **UNES Prometheus  
Main Bridge**

In high orbit above the planet Tollana—the new Tollan capital world—was a lone space station surrounded by dozens of ships, most of them Tollan star cruisers and frigates. Docked in one of the large hangars of the station was the _Prometheus_ undergoing repairs and an extensive overhaul of its major systems. Doctor Jackson had been requested by name to help negotiate technology—specifically weapons technology. The Terrans were very interested in energy weapons specifically the ion cannons that the Tollan employed on the surface of their planets and aboard their ships. On the other hand the Tollan wanted access to the Ancient drones, the most powerful projectile weapons in the known universe capable of punching through anything short of Asgard designed energy shields as if they weren't there.

The crew had some shore leave schedule anyway so it was decided that the _Prometheus_ would set a course for the new Tollan capital world and Doctor Jackson spoke directly to their leadership, the Curia. Omoc was still a hard case concerning technological exchange with 'lesser' advanced cultures like the Terrans however so far everything was going well. The crew needed some downtime after the recent crisis aboard concerning Cassandra—Doctor Fraiser's adopted daughter—whom had fallen ill and had started demonstrating some almost supernatural abilities, among them telekinesis. It wasn't just her either, many Hankans back on their homeworld were experiencing the same thing. Upon investigation they discovered an abandoned Goa'uld facility on Hanka which Nirrti had been using to experiment on their people in secret. The Aschen were thankfully able to find out what the problem was and had developed a 'cure' for their illness which allowed them to retain their newfound abilities.

Major Samantha Carter couldn't help but smile as she watched Jack say something she couldn't hear and his son Charlie laugh. The now sixteen year old Charlie O'Neill had arrived yesterday through the Stargate on Tollana along with a few dozen others. Half the crew had gone back through the Stargate to visit friends and family though there were some like Sam who chose to remain. Her father was still on the frontlines and the last she'd heard from him was a few days ago just before a major operation against Cylon supply lines.

"So how was school?" Jack asked as they sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. He brought up a list of programs and selected the Simpsons.

"Boring," Charlie groaned.

"I felt the same way when I was a kid," Jack grinned as he ruffled his son's hair. "Don't let it get you down, you hear?"

"Yeah," Charlie nodded with a sigh.

"Besides it's not all bad I'm sure," Jack said with an amused smile. "I heard you and Cassandra have been spending an awful lot of time together lately."

"D-dad!" Charlie shook his head suddenly turning red. "We're just friends."

"If you say so kiddo," Jack merely smiled unconvinced.

Sam just shook her head at the sight of Jack teasing his son and couldn't help but smile. While it was true that Jack and Sara had divorced years ago that didn't mean they still didn't talk on occasion, they had a son after all. If she was being honest with herself she was still trying to figure out her own feelings for him but knew that as long as he was her commanding officer neither of them could allow themselves to be interested in each other. Daniel had it lucky, being a civilian allowed him more leeway and had recently started a relationship with a woman named Vala Mal Doran. Until recently she was the host of the Goa'uld Qetesh but it had thankfully been removed by the Tok'ra after she was captured by the _Prometheus_ and her crew during a raid. Just as she was about to sit down on one of the chairs the whole room lurched to the side sending her tumbling to the floor. Jack and Charlie were thrown from the couch and ended up on the floor beside her as the lights flickered. Emergency lighting kicked in a moment later and sirens started sounding throughout the vessel. Sam groaned as she shook her head and tried to push herself back onto her feet. Jack and Charlie did the same a second later as Sam quickly rushed over to the nearby panel and brought up the data from the _Prometheus'_ sensor array.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked his son.

"I-I'm fine dad," Charlie replied shakily.

"Good," Jack nodded and turned slightly. "Carter?"

"Goa'uld ships," Sam answered. "Fifteen of them."

"Let's get to the hangar," Jack said as he headed for the door. "Charlie, stay here okay?"

"Okay dad," Charlie answered with a nod. "Stay safe."

"Always am kiddo," Jack smiled back in reassurance.

As he and Sam left the room and headed for the hangar bay he couldn't help but wonder if he was trying to reassure Charlie or himself. After all it was a fleet of a _mere_ fifteen Goa'uld, definitely not enough for an attack on the Tollan capital world. Tollana was the second most heavily defended planet in the known galaxy with only Earth and its Ancient outpost being considered better protected. By their estimates it would take a Goa'uld fleet at least fifty times the size of the one present to attack Tollana with any real hope of victory, and even then the rest of the Tollan-controlled worlds wouldn't take such an attack lying down.

It wasn't long before the two of them were suited up and climbing into their respective Vultures. With only half the crew aboard and the number of civilians present they knew that standard procedure was for the _Prometheus_ to fall back while its fighter squadron covered them. Within moments of strapping themselves in they launched their Vultures and turned towards where the sensors were detecting the enemy ships. Even from here he could tell something was wrong because according to the sensors, the few Tollan warships that had moved into weapons range were being systematically destroyed one after the other.

"Carter?" Jack inquired through the comm. "What's going on?"

"Unknown sir," Sam replied. "The Tollan is engaging them now but the Goa'uld seem to have upgraded their shields."

"Inbound Gliders and Al'kesh," Kawalsky spoke up.

A second later Jack looked down at his sensor readings as they detected several squadrons of Goa'uld craft heading in their direction. Tollan fighters were already moving to engage, jumping right into the middle of their formations and tearing into their unshielded hides. Jack had personally never seen the Tollan fighter craft in action before but looking at the way they turned and looked, he was certainly going to ask if they could copy the designs. The craft were dagger-shaped, equipped with energy shields and miniaturized ion cannons. There weren't as many flying about as he hoped there would be but he could understand why, after all from what he'd heard they were ridiculously expensive to build.

On second thought they might be better off copying the Colonial's Viper-type fighters instead…

"Missiles free," Jack said as he activated the targeting computer and locked onto the approaching Goa'uld crafter.

As one the Terran Vultures and Raptors unleashed a barrage of anti-fighter missiles at the swarm. The Tollan fighters jumped out just before the missiles reached their targets and detonated in a series of small kiloton nuclear blasts. The moment it was over the Tollan fighters jumped back into the fray to pick off the stragglers that survived as the Terran craft dived in. Out of the corner of his eyes Jack saw Sam's Vulture shoot down an Al'kesh as he tried to get a target lock on a fleeing Glider. Once he managed to get a decent lock he pulled the trigger and fired a stream of trinium rounds at the Glider, tearing it apart. After a few minutes it was over and the last of the Goa'uld craft were destroyed. They were just about to regroup to engage the next wave when several large flashes nearly blinded them all.

"It's the Tollan," Sam explained as the light died down to reveal most of the Goa'uld motherships either disabled or destroyed. "Some kind of Neutrino-ion energy mines."

Jack blinked away the spots as he realised what she'd just said. The Asgard used Neutrino-ion generators to power their ships and so did the Tollan. He'd heard that they'd both started using them as weapons but this was the first time he'd ever seen them in use. Supposedly just one of them could destroy a small planet, which was one of the reasons that they were kept aboard ships or deep space stations where they were far from civilization. The fact that the Tollan were willing to use them here proved more than anything else that the Goa'uld had frightened them with their new shields.

At least they survived…


	12. Vanir

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter12: Vanir

 **August 2001  
** **Xi System  
** **Vanir Prime  
Testing Facility 03**

The moment Loki realised something was wrong he was unfortunately on Vanir Prime overseeing the latest series of experiments on the captured Colonial humans at the time. At first he thought nothing of it when he received reports of distortions in local space—after all the nebula was notorious for them—but that all changed when four Colonial Battlestars jumped into the atmosphere right above him. Antigravity kept them from falling to the ground and allowed them to bring their lower gun batteries to beat on the guard towers all the while they launched hundreds of strike craft into the air.

Primitive metal projectiles shot down from the Colonial vessels and pounded the few guard towers and defence turrets to dust as wave after wave of Vipers and Raptors descended upon the Vanir city. The few surface-to-space ion batteries returned fire, spewing shot after show up at them and for a moment he thought that was it. Anger overtook him for a moment as a familiar orange energy shield sprang up and withstood the barrage.

Terran energy shields...

Damn those accursed primitives...

"Here's one!" a voice shouted from the side.

Before the Colonial soldier could take aim and fire he had already raised his left arm. An energy shield sprang into existence as the soldier squeezed the trigger, firing a stream of projectiles at him which exploded against his shield. Explosive rounds, primitive but effective, a relic of the Colonial-Cylon War and one that proved its worth by causing his shield to flicker and die. It was already too late for the human however because Loki brought his other arm up and burned a hole through his chest with his wrist-mounted ion particle beam thrower. More humans appeared but he wasn't deterred in the slightest, after all they were only human.

He needed get back to his ship...

* * *

High above in orbit of the planet the Vanir fleet was surprised when over a hundred Colonial warships of various configurations jumped in alongside the _Korolev_ and a dozen Eos-class destroyers. The moment they jumped in they immediately opened fire, shattering a few dozen Vanir frigates before they could get their shields up. The rest had managed to raise their shields in time and returned fire with their ion cannons. The _Korolev_ was hit three times as Colonel Chekov gritted his teeth, sparks flying behind him as he held onto his chair.

"Shields are holding," Lorne spoke up. "Sensors are picking up a dozen more ships launching from the station."

"Return fire with the drones!" Chekov ordered. "Target those cruisers!"

Thankfully there were only two Bilskirnir-class cruisers in orbit not far from the massive Vanir space station which seemed to overshadow them both due to its size. Unlike the last time however they didn't just have two ships to face off against the much larger and more powerful Asgard-designed warships. This time the _Korolev_ was backed by twelve Eos-class destroyers, each one armed with their own drone launchers which quickly added their firepower. As one the thirteen Terran warships fired a volley of drones at the two Vanir cruisers, making sure to target them one at a time. The first cruiser's shields collapsed within moments from the sheer number of drones launched at it. Once the shields were smashed the remaining drones broke off and immediately changed course, moving to attack the second cruiser.

"Their shields are down," Lorne reported.

"Fire all missile batteries!" Chekov gave the order.

Dozens of Naquadah-enhanced nuclear missiles shot out from the Terran warships and moved to strike the two unshielded cruisers. Vanir point-defence turrets shot most of them down however two slipped through and struck one of the cruisers, consuming its forward section in nuclear light. By the time the light had died down all that was left of it was the rear section floating lifeless as its engines flickered and died. The other cruiser however was undamaged and was moving away, no doubt intending to recharge its shields.

The Colonials had other ideas...

The _Pegasus_ and its support ships jumped in directly in front of the retreating Vanir cruiser, guns blazing as they immediately started spewing shot after shot from its much larger coil-guns. The Vanir cruiser returned fire while it could but it was a futile gesture as round after round tore through its armoured hull. After a couple of minutes of near constant pounding from the Colonial warships, the Vanir cruiser broke apart and tumbled away, its space frame smashed and torn.

"Both enemy cruisers have been destroyed," Lorne informed.

"Order all ships to concentrate fire on those frigates," Chekov ordered quickly. "Leave the station alone for now."

This wouldn't be easy...

* * *

Captain Kara Thrace gritted her teeth as she pulled back on her gearstick and held down the trigger, her Viper responding to her actions by angling 'upwards' and spewing dozens of small rounds at the annoying alien fighter. It broke apart under the assault and she was forced to turn away as it exploded a moment later when its engine core destabilised. That made her third kill of the day and judging by the many more that were even now launching from the surface, it wouldn't be her last.

A flash of light lit up the horizon as another Vanir frigate was nuked by the Battlestar _Orion_ , the enemy vessel's shields having been brought down by one of the Terran destroyers. Tough little buggers those Terrans were, though she wasn't complaining. Even she knew that the war with the aliens hadn't been going well, at least not before the Terrans came onto the scene and started helping them. Her DRADIS pinged as she picked up another Vanir fighter coming up behind her and she threw her Viper into a spin. Ion bolts shot passed her cockpit as she changed course, diving down towards the planet below. Blasted aliens and their energy weapons! That shit could melt through her Viper in seconds and she rather liked living thank you very much.

"Apollo! I could do with some help here!" she yelled into the wireless.

"I'm a little busy right now!" came the response. Looking at her DRADIS she saw that her wing leader was currently being chased by no less than five Vanir fighters and couldn't help but grin. Oh yeah, he was so buying the squadron drinks tonight. She hit the Viper's afterburners and shot off towards Apollo's beleaguered Viper with the Vanir fighter still chasing her. Once in range she quickly locked on with her targeting system and armed the missiles she was carrying.

"Lee! Joust!" Kara yelled as she hit the launch command.

Major Lee Adama nearly groaned in frustration when he heard her but followed her suggestion since his pursuers had nearly hit him twice and he just couldn't seem to shake them. He pulled up and headed towards Kara oncoming Viper, taking note of her own pursuer. He quickly fired his own missile as those that Kara had already launched struck the fighters changing him. His missile likewise hit Kara's pursuer and destroyed it in a ball of temporary fire.

"Damn it Starbuck!" Lee yelled. "Cutting it a little close weren't you?!"

"Sorry!" Kara laughed back as they both formed up and headed down towards the planet below to regroup with the rest of their squadron.

Funny...

She didn't sound sorry...

Once they broke through the clouds they could see the massive aerial battle taking place between the Colonial, Vanir and Terran fighters. Hovering over the area was the Battlestar _Galactica_ which was pounding a grounded Vanir cruiser that was trying to launch with its lower guns. So far the battle was going well, too well in fact, and that was setting Lee's stomach on edge. The answer came when a column of light erupted from the ground north of the Vanir city. A massive ship resembling one of the Vanir cruisers rose out of it and immediately opened fire on the Battlestar _Columbia_ , smashing its already weakening shields and blowing it in half.

"What the frack is that?!"

* * *

Loki watched the screen as the two halves of the Colonial Battlestar tumbled down to the ground, crushing both Vanir clones and human soldiers alike. His hand moved over the controls of his console and he quickly targeted the second Battlestar in the area, the _'Galactica'_ if the human words on the hull were any indication. Just as he was about to fire his new ion beam cannons, the _Galactica_ disappeared in a flash of light. A quick check of the sensor readings located it now in high orbit near the rest of the attacking fleet alongside the other two Battlestar that had been hovering over the city. Idly he noticed that the orbital station wasn't being attacked yet, not that surprising since it had no weapons. It was a repair and refit station, not a military installation so they could deal with it after they'd destroyed the Vanir fleet.

A sound tactic...

Except he had other plans...

He engaged the hyperdrive and the air in front of his new Valhalla-class Dreadnought tore open. His old _Valhalla_ had already been destroyed in orbit by the humans though he didn't really care, after all it was obsolete anyways. A moment later the new _Valhalla_ dropped out of hyperspace and Loki found himself in orbit near the station. This was to be the first of many Vanir dreadnoughts designed to combat anything from the Replicators to the humans boasting more powerful shields and weapons compared to the ageing Bilskirnir-class cruisers that had been the backbone of the Asgard fleet for millennia. Alteran drones launched from the Terran ships though he noted that this salvo was all that they had left and his improved shields shrugged them off. He entered the command and targeted one of the Terran destroyers. The ion cannon batteries flared to life once more and fired a sustained beam at the destroyer, pulverising it within seconds.

He opened a channel...

"Surrender or flee," he spoke clearly.

He closed the channel...

Those were their only options...

The only other choice they had was to stay and die which he proved by destroying another Terran destroyer. Primitive nuclear weapons—even Naquadah boosted ones from the Terrans—struck his ship's shields however they proved useless in forestalling the inevitable. He would deal with the Terrans first and then wipe out the Colonials. He wouldn't be taking any chances with these primitives, not after everything they'd lost today.

His sensors suddenly sparked loudly...

"This is Supreme Command Thor of the Asgard fleet," the familiar aggravating voice echoed through the communication systems. "Stand down Loki."

Three ships emerged from hyperspace—clearly Asgard in design—and took up formation directly in front of the Valhalla. He immediately scanned them and frowned at what his readings were showing him. Though they bore a small resemblance to the old Bilskirnir-class cruisers they were larger with far more advanced technology aboard them than what he had expected. Their weapons alone seemed to be at least twice as powerful and their shields almost rivalled his own. No doubt they were designed by Heimdall to use against the Replicators and possibly himself.

"I will not do that Thor," Loki responded as he opened a channel.

"For crimes against the High Council you are under arrest," Thor told him. "Failure to comply will result in the destruction of your ship."

"Perhaps another time," Loki mused as he entered another command into his console.

Three-to-one odds weren't something he was fond of even if he did have the edge technology-wise. Besides he still had a few thousand human test subjects in storage aboard the ship and they had pretty much stopped the degradation of their species' genome. He opened a hyperspace window and the _Valhalla_ disappeared into it, setting a course out of the galaxy. Idly he noted two of the three Asgard ships pursuing him through hyperspace though they couldn't seem to keep up with him. Once he reached the intergalactic void he would lose them and disappear. If he and his Vanir allies ever returned to this area of space he wondered if those fools on the High Council would still be around?

Or would they have already perished trying to uphold their ideals?


	13. Back and Forth

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter13: Back and Forth

 **July 2002  
** **Arcadia System  
** **Burial Pharaoh  
Pel'tak**

His steps echoed as he 'walked' through the corridor towards his ship's command centre. His faithful First Prime Her'ak already there waiting for him as he stepped through the archway and moved towards his throne chair. Oh how he despised this form, the one he had been 'given' when he'd been cast down from the higher plains. Despite the form of immortality it granted him it was still nothing compared to the Ascension he had attained all those years ago from that fool Oma. Thankfully he at least retained some knowledge of the Ancients and had been able to put it to good use in locating several caches of Ancient technology and upgrading his small but formidable fleet. He'd given the designs of the less advanced shield generators he had to the other System Lords—even Yu—and fully expected them to at least stall their enemies. While Anubis detested his fellow System Lords he knew that they had their uses, namely as fodder.

"We are arriving now my Lord," Her'ak spoke up.

A second later his new Dreadnought emerged back into normal space followed by a dozen Ha'taks, shields raised and weapons fully powered. Looking out of the viewport from his chair he saw the small green planet with two moons and a large space station in orbit surrounded by dozens of smaller civilian vessels. This was the Tau'ri's frontline command center on the edge of their territory where they had been launching attacks against the Goa'uld Empire, more specifically Anubis' territory. The Tau'ri boasted powerful weapons and shields of Ancient design more advanced than even his own which he found infuriating.

He knew that his own enhanced shields could deflect the ion weapons used by the Tollan and Asgard, something he had proven during the recent assault on the new Tollan homeworld. Sadly he hadn't take into account any other weapons that the Tollan possessed. He'd even gone as far as to accelerate a Naquadah filled asteroid at the Tau'ri homeworld only to find out later that they had strapped one of their space distortion drives to it and transported it to a planet controlled by the Jaffa Rebellion so that they could sell it to them. According to his spies it was payment for the recent destruction of his Ancient Stargate Destroyer by the Jaffa fleet two cycles ago following his attempted attack on the Tau'ri home system's Stargate.

Then there were the machines, synthetic abominations that destroyed almost everything they came across and captured whatever they didn't. Though technologically inferior in many ways they were quickly catching up and the sheer number of them made dealing with them difficult. Two of his own ships had been lost mere hours ago during the attack on a machine hive world merely seventy-two light years away. He and the rest of the System Lords had observed the times when the two of them were in the same system. Despite the Goa'uld presence both the Tau'ri and the machines almost always went after each other first making him wonder exactly what their history was. If he didn't know better he would think it was some kind of blood feud judging by the way they seemed to ignore even his own forces and instead chose to fight each other.

They wouldn't ignore him anymore...

"Let them hear me," Anubis spoke clearly and Her'ak quickly opened a channel. "I am Anubis, I have come to claim this world," the plan was simple, use overwhelming force to subjugate the defences and bombard the planet from orbit. Upon his command thousands of Death Gliders launched from his ships and descended upon the lone space station. There were several patrol vessels near the planet's outer moon but they were inconsequential for the moment. Hundreds of Al'kesh dropped out of hyperspace almost right on top of them and opened fire.

"Your orders my Lord?" Her'ak asked the question.

"Destroy everything," Anubis answered with a sense of finality.

The Gliders were the first to reach the Tau'ri defences, slamming into the wall of assembled fighter craft and cutting a path straight through them. The Hat'aks were next, throwing dozens of plasma bolts at the ships in the area around the station. Meanwhile the dreadnought moved towards the space station itself, its 'top' opening up and spreading out as it did so. Ancient energy projectiles launched from the station however they wouldn't stop him, not now that he had the Eyes. The Eyes of the Goa'uld were energy crystals of Ancient design and after many years he had finally located them. The last was the Eye of Ra which he found on the planet Abydos, a primitive world under the protection of the Tau'ri. It had been abandoned however when he arrived and claimed it for himself. With the Eyes he could now power his greatest weapon, an energy weapon of Ancient design built into his dreadnought.

"We are in position my Lord," Her'ak informed. "The station is within range of the weapon."

"Destroy it," Anubis ordered.

Energy gathered and compressed atop the dreadnought, shooting out at the Tau'ri space station almost like a lightning bolt. It tore through the stations shields and triggered secondary explosion across its surface until its space frame shattered completely. What was left of it fell towards the surface, burning up in re-entry. This was repeated a moment later as the weapon recharged and fired again, this time at the surface. Half a million people died as the beam struck the planet's Stargate causing it to explode releasing a shockwave that encompassed a third of the planet surface.

In years to come this was known as the Fall if Arcadia…

 **September 2003  
** **Xi System  
** **New Caprica  
New Caprica City**

Admiral William Adama walked through the newly paved streets of the still booming city, smoothing out his uniform as he did. It was cold here, very cold, cold enough that the hottest day of the planetary year was just ten degrees above freezing. The environment was rather harsh with most of the planet's surface covered by ice and snow. Only twenty percent of the surface was habitable and that had been occupied by the Vanir until they'd conquered the planet. After they'd taken the surface and the Vanir had fled into hyperspace, the Colonials quickly began colonizing the planet. A year later and they had finally started to see the establishment of the new colony's capital city, naming the planet New Caprica.

Following the battle the Colonials, Terrans and the Asgard drafted the Treaty of New Caprica to formalize their alliance. According to the Asgard the ships that they'd sent after Loki had lost track of his vessel and it had left the galaxy though the general direction indicated he was heading for what the Terrans called the Triangulum Galaxy. Good riddance he thought as he approached the main gates of the central government building at the heart of the fledgling city. The guards on duty saluted him as he walked passed but he paid them no heed as he made his way inside and up the stairs to the second floor. A short walk from there had him standing in the open doorway of the conference room where Admiral Nagala was already waiting for him.

"Ah Bill," Nagala greeted with a small smile and waved him inside. "Please take a seat."

"You wanted to see me Admiral?" Adama inquired as he sat down across from him.

"Yes," Nagala started. "As you know the colonization of New Caprica is underway and the Vanir threat has been neutralized for now however High Command is still concerned. There have been talks about possibly sending out an expedition fleet using the new nav-computers to track down Loki and the Vanir."

"And you want me to lead it?" Adama asked the question. He saw Nagala give him a firm nod for confirmation and couldn't help but wonder what the future held for his people. It wasn't a simple thing they were being asked to do, not at all. They were being asked to go to another galaxy on what was likely to be a one-way trip and find the renegade Asgard faction.

"That's right," Nagala replied honestly. "The Battlestars _Galactica_ and _Valkyrie_ along with a fleet of support ships will be under your command Admiral."

The _Galactica_ he could understand since it was his new command but the _Valkyrie_ too? She didn't even have a commander since he transferred to the _Galactica_ following the Fall of Armistice Station and she had been put in drydock for repairs. Idly he thought of putting Saul in command but discarded the idea, his friend never wanted command and would likely tell him no. Damn it, with the number of casualties they had sustained there were a lot of positions that needed filled, especially after the last battle. Maybe he could promote some of his people? Lee perhaps? His estranged son had always wanted a command of his own and despite being a Viper pilot the young man had a good head on his shoulders. It wasn't as if he'd be the first one to be given command straight from being a CAG either after recent events. Not to mention that no one could question him favouring his son, after all if he fracked up then Bill would personally send him back to flight school.

Now who would make a good XO?

 **September 2003  
** **Tartarus System  
** **UNS Prometheus  
Hangar Bay One**

Colonel Jack O'Neill was growing increasingly impatient as he sat in the cockpit of his new Mark IX Terran-built Viper, one of the first to be deployed to replace the aging Vultures. Say what you wanted about the Colonials, they made some damn good fighter craft. Judging from the reports coming out of Andromeda, the Vanir had fled and were somewhere in Triangulum. Now that trade was picking up more and more between the Twelve Colonies and Terrans, the technological exchange was increasing too. The sheer amount of ships that the Colonials could build was impressive, especially the size of them, most of which dwarfed any other human faction in the known universe.

While it was true that they were technologically behind the more advanced interstellar human factions, that did not change the fact that whatever the Colonials built, they built big. Already plans were being made to purchase the Battlestar hulls from the Colonials using tylium as payment, something that they desperately needed since it was so sparse in the Andromeda galaxy. They'd used quite a bit of their stockpile during the Vanir crisis and they were running low since their only main supply at this point came from their mining colony on the planet Troy. The first batch of hulls had already arrived and were currently undergoing an extensive refit at the orbital space station over Mars. Hopefully those battle _ships_ would be able to turn the tide against the Goa'uld and the Cylons.

They needed every edge they could get these days…

The attacks by the System Lord Anubis starting with the Fall of Arcadia had forced the Terrans and their allies to fall back by nearly one hundred light years. The superweapon he had aboard his flagship was proving its worth by the fact that whenever it appeared, it smashed through whatever defences were in the area no matter what they were. Thankfully he just seemed to have one of them and was forced to prioritize where to attack and when. Not only that but they'd been getting reports of some kind of genetically engineered creatures called 'Kull Warriors' showing up through the Stargates on allied worlds and colonies. Each one wore some kind of protective armour that absorbed weapons fire, specifically from energy weapons like staff blasts. Bullets and explosives barely slowed them down, at least until the Terrans started using the new Rail-Rifles on the ground like they had been doing in space during boarding actions, something that the Opricans had helped make possible.

Thankfully not everything was doom and gloom these days. In recent months they had made contact with several worlds, most notably Langara, Pangar, Hebridan and Tagrea. The planet Langara was divided up into three nations that had until recently been readying for a world war. That had all changed however when a battlegroup led by the _Prometheus_ entered orbit and sent down Doctor Jackson to meet them. Their technology was primitive however they had discovered a mineral deposit on the planet that was like the one they found on the Icarus mining colony in the Gliese 892 System that they were calling Naquadria. It was highly volatile and explosive, even more so than regular Naquadah.

The planet Pangar was a shock not only to the Terrans but also the Tok'ra because it was being ruled by their Queen, Egeria. She had apparently been imprisoned on the planet by Ra centuries ago and had been found by the local human population. She blended with one of them and using her knowledge of Goa'uld technology quickly seized control of the planet. She'd birthed more Tok'ra symbiotes and they were blended with the local humans as their overall technology advanced. They'd been colonizing their star system when the _Prometheus_ and her battlegroup arrived. Needless to say the Tok'ra High Council were shocked at not only finding out that their 'mother' was alive but also that she'd effectively created a true homeworld for them.

Then there was the planet Hebridan, a world that was home to a human population and an alien race called the Serrakin. Both of them lived together and had even started to merge. They were technologically advanced and weren't that far behind the Aschen overall, controlling a few dozen star systems and having a small fleet of warships. A few of their patrol ships had run afoul of some Cylon Basestars on the border of their space however they were thankfully able to fight them off. They were interested in joining the ever growing alliance and seemed almost eager to begin negotiations by the time Doctor Jackson met with them. Finally Tagrea wasn't that advanced when compared to others however they were still capable of interplanetary travel and nuclear warfare, something they demonstrated by launching a couple of surface-to-space missiles at the _Prometheus_ when it jumped into orbit. The lone gas giant at the edge of the system had a number of moons that were rich in tylium and trinium, both of which Doctor Jackson negotiated for in exchange for finding the local Stargate and turning it over to the Tagrean government.

After a few minutes to familiarise himself with the controls he quickly brought the Viper's systems online as the bay doors opened. "This is Delta-One heading out," Jack spoke into the comm. He ignited the main engine and the craft shot out of the hangar into the space beyond. Around him he could see a dozen or so more Vipers flying alongside him as well as another forty or so Vultures. As one they all jumped away leaving their motherships behind and reappearing above a lone light brown planet. The moment they arrived Jack's displays lit up and showed dozens of Ha'tak in orbit including a large number of Death Gliders and Al'kesh on patrol.

"Multiple contacts," Sam reported from her own Viper.

"Vultures on point," Jack ordered. "Stay in formation and let them have it."

The Vultures hit their afterburners a moment later and moved into weapons range of the Goa'uld strike craft. Missiles and trinium rounds shot forth and tore into the Gliders before they could react allowing the Vultures to carve a path through them. Jack spun his new Viper to the side as did the others letting their momentum carry them onwards behind the Vultures. As they drifted into the Vulture's wake every Viper fired their own railguns, tearing into those that tried to turn and give chase as they headed directly for the gathered Ha'tak motherships. Meanwhile miles below them five Mark-III Raptors and a dozen Falcons appeared inside the atmosphere, some of whom had to hastily evade the mountain they were about to fly into. Like the new Vipers, the Raptors were a joint Terran-Colonial project that produced a more advanced gunship than either the older Raptor models or the Falcons.

"Alright people let's move!" Kawalsky yelled as he angled his Raptor down towards the massive structure below.

According to intelligence supplied by the Tok'ra this was Anubis' base of operations and the facility that he used to produce his new Kull Warriors which had been wreaking havoc on the Jaffa and Terran troops across the frontline. As they approached the drop zone he idly noted the presence of a partially constructed Anubis-class Dreadnought under construction with a set of docking clamps just off of the main base. It looked like Anubis was building more of them though from what the Tok'ra had told them, he had yet to find a solution to the power requirements that the vessel's main energy weapon needed in order to be fired. Currently he was using an Ancient energy source to power his flagship's main weapon and he could not reproduce it.

According to Tollan R&D nothing short of a stabilised Naquadria-based reactor could power it, and even then there was always the chance it could destabilise. A ZPM could do it but the chances of finding one was rare. Anti-air staff cannons fired at them from the facility, splashing against their shields as the Terran gunships descended, launching a volley of missiles in return. The missiles struck true and detonated, sending the defence cannons up in flames as they made their final approach. Once they landed the marines aboard quickly disembarked, dropping down to the floor. Kull Warriors appeared in the doorway and were quickly gunned down despite their advanced armour. The new Optrican-designed Trinium-Naquadah explosive rounds were more than sufficient to penetrate the previously invulnerable armour that the Kull Warriors wore.

Once his passengers were clear Kawalsky took off again and headed upwards along with the rest of the gunships. In orbit Jack had to hit the Viper's starboard thrusters to avoid a pair of plasma bolts from blowing him out of space right then and there. A Glider chased after him, spewing shot after shot of plasma at him as he continued to evade. All around him was a fur ball of death and destruction as the Terran and Goa'uld strike craft tried to shoot down the other. Throwing his Viper into a spine he rotated the frame so that he was effectively flying 'backwards' and locked onto the pursuing Glider. He held down the trigger as soon as he had a lock and fired a barrage of rounds from his railguns. The rounds tore through the center of its frame, smashing it into falling debris. As it broke apart her hit the thrusters again followed by the main engine and 'dived' as two more Gliders fired at him.

He was about to call for the remaining Terran craft to retreat and regroup when his Viper's sensors pinged causing him to smile. Down on the surface Terran marines quickly secured the area around the Stargate and had deactivated its shield iris. They'd immediately activated their subspace beacon and a moment later the Stargate was dialled in curtesy of the SGA on Luna. Dozens of Mark-IX Vipers soon came through the Stargate and flew up towards orbit to reinforce the squadrons already engaged. Unlike the Terran craft that were dealing with the Gliders and Al'kesh, these new Vipers headed directly for the Ha'tak motherships.

"The door is open," Jack said clearly. "We'll keep the flies off of you."

The new Viper squadron acknowledged and moved into weapons range. Ancient drones fired from the tubes at the front of the Vipers and quickly punched straight through he shields of the assembled Ha'tak. Many succumbed to secondary explosions while others were finished off by a missile from the same Vipers, consuming them in nuclear light. Seeing the familiar energy projectiles that the Terran reinforcements were carrying, the remaining Gliders and Al'kesh tried to intercept only to be shot down by the initial squadron. After the last of the Ha'tak motherships were destroyed a series of flashes announced the arrival of six Terran battlecruisers and a carrier led by the _Prometheus_ whom quickly moved to finish off the last of the Goa'uld strike craft. On the surface the marines quickly evacuated through the Stargate before the Terran warships that were now in orbit rained missiles down on the planet, destroying the facility in a series of low-kiloton explosions. Once the remaining Terran strike craft landed aboard their motherships they jumped out, leaving behind nothing of Anubis' base.

The Kull threat was neutralized…


	14. Starlight

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter14: Starlight

 **February 2004  
** **Sector A47  
** **Basestar-348  
Command Center**

The war had reached a bit of a stalemate as of late due to those blasted parasites and their new superweapon and flagship. The accursed thing along with a dozen or so escort motherstars had almost wiped out the fleet node in Sector A47, the so called 'frontline' by the despicable Thirteeners. It had gotten to the point where he was forced to redeploy fleet nodes Zero-Eight and Zero-Nine to reinforce their presence there leaving the Aschen human faction to deal with later. He knew that the parasites were becoming bolder with every victory but hopefully once the new Type-V Basestars and antimatter cannons were put into production it would turn the tide once again.

Cavil inwardly cursed as he skimmed the latest reports on the various human factions that were still resisting, especially the Tollan and Hebridian groups. Both were technologically advanced and were putting up stiff resistance though the main concern was actually the Terrans themselves. The Thirteeners were resilient-he'd give them that-but the way they seemed to outmanoeuvre anything that the Cylons could come up with. They would have to be dealt with sooner rather than later...

Perhaps...

No, he couldn't risk a large enough fleet to pull it off...

Not yet at least...

He was resting his human body when the sirens started and he got up from his bed. Cavil walked out of the room and down the hallway passing a pair of running Centurions and stepped into the command center. The others were already there interfacing with the main systems, operating them all with thoughts.

"What is it?" Cavil asked the question.

"Take a look for yourself," a Five replied.

He looked at him in confusion for a moment before placing his hand on the console and linked with the systems starting with the sensors. The universe exploded into his mind as he saw it, taking shape and showing him what he needed to see. A fleet had just jumped in made up of familiar-looking vessels, each one giving off similar readings to Terran ships only different. Fighters swarmed out from the larger vessels, again of an all-to familiar design.

The Colonials...

"Impossible," Cavil spoke in disbelief.

It would have taken them decades to reach this galaxy because of their terrible nav-computers and even then he was certain that they had no way of tracking the Cylons after they left the Cyrannus System. There were also the readings he was picking up from them, namely the fact that the Colonial ships had energy shields raised and what seemed to be energy projectile launchers on their hulls similar to the ones that the Terrans used.

It was then that they received the transmission...

"This is Admiral Helena Cain of the Battlestar _Pegasus_ to Cylon fleet," a woman's voice spoke through the comm. "This system is now under our jurisdiction, withdraw from the area immediately or you will be fired upon."

Cavil didn't even need to think...

"Destroy them!"

* * *

Aboard the Battlestar _Pegasus_ , Admiral Cain watched as Cylon Raiders launched in waves from the Basestars and their escorts but were clearly evenly matched by the equal number of Vipers moving to intercept them. Missiles launched from the Basestars first only to be shot down when the heavy gun batteries of the Colonial Battlestars opened fire. Idly she noted the appearance of the modern Basestar compared to those that fought in the first Colonial-Cylon War.

When she'd first heard that the Cylons had attacked Earth after the war and were now attempting to exterminate the human race, she wasn't surprised at all when the President pushed for war with the machines that once tried to wipe them out. No one was under any illusions that once the Cylons were finished with the Terrans and their allies that they wouldn't turn back to the Colonies. Using their advanced technology they acquired in the Terran home galaxy they would easily crush the Colonies and no one wanted that. Soon enough the order was given and her fleet was sent out alongside several others upgraded by the Terrans. While she personally saw the Terrans as arrogant upstarts for the way they acted, seemingly trying to be everyone's best friend yet thinking they were the leading force against the monsters in the universe despite being only one lone colony.

She and many others refused to believe that Earth was the original homeworld of humanity no matter what the Terrans and their allies said but even she had to admit they had inherited a lot from the Lords of Kobol and it showed in their technology. Then there were the aliens like the Asgard who her people distrusted because of Loki and his cohorts. Aliens existed and she knew that they would have to adapt but only with Colonial supremacy. The Colonies had one of the largest human populations in the known universe second only to the Aschen Confederation whom had eighty billion people across dozens of planets. It was time that the Colonials set an example for the rest of humanity to follow and it started here with their greatest mistake, the Cylons.

"Forward batteries open fire," Cain gave the order.

The new Tollan-supplied ion cannons installed on the massive Battlestars glowed bright blue for a second before lobbing concentrated spheres of energy at the Cylon ships. Each shot smashed down their shields and ripped the vessels apart in seconds as Colonial Vipers clashed with the Cylon Raiders. In response antimatter missiles from the remaining Basestars launched from their turrets and shot towards the Colonial warships.

"Incoming missiles," Colonel Fisk reported. "Intercepting now."

The gun batteries on the Battlestars and their escorts opened fire then, spewing shot after shot at the rapidly approaching missiles. Most were shot down however a few managed to make it through and struck the Terran-supplied energy shields. Cain was thrown to the ground as the _Pegasus_ was struck by no more than five warheads, its shield buckling under the assault and her outer armour vaporising as the energy bled through. A now bleeding Cain climbed back to her feet, snarling wildly at the tenacious of the Cylons as she slammed her fist down in the table.

"Fire everything!" Cain roared. "Get those frakkers!" the remaining Colonial ships that survived the counterattack fired again, this time tearing through the remaining Basestars and their escorts before they could fire off another salvo of missiles. Seeing what had happened to the rest of their fleet, the remaining Cylon jumped out a few seconds later opting to retreat while they analysed this new development in the war.

Their creators had returned...

 **March 2004  
** **Uncharted System  
** **Raptor-Delta-One  
Cockpit**

Colonel Jack O'Neill sat back and yawned as he rechecked his rifle, making sure the mag-rails were aligned. Sam was a few feet away putting her rocket launcher back together now that she'd cleaned it. They weren't expecting heavy combat but considering where they were going and why it was understandable that she wanted to take it with her, especially since they would be fighting Cylon Centurions and probably armour too. Though from what she'd told him, she would rather have been taking part in the Hebridan space race again considering she had just recently won the last one.

In recent months they had been busy almost nonstop making contact with dozens of more inhabited worlds including the planet Ardena, the new homeworld of a human population called the Talthuns. Their original homeworld was lost and they migrated to Ardena in sub-light transports. They were nice enough folks but negotiations were still ongoing. As for the war the recent assault by the Colonial forces on the Cylon border with the Aschen Confederation had pushed the plate heads back several sectors and continued to do so at a steady pace. At the same time the Jaffa had launched a campaign against the System Lord Moloc and had crushed the bulk of his fleet over the planet Hak'tyl. It seemed that Anubis had pulled back his forces to regroup while the other System Lords covered for him presenting a united front, at least for now until they were in a better position overall to the point where they didn't need him anymore.

The Tok'ra had informed them of a large military build-up of Cylon forces on the outer rim and the Terrans had assembled a fleet to investigate. Stealth fighters dispatched to the area had reported a Cylon presence concentrated around a habitable planet in an uncharted star system. Rumours had also circulated that they had found an Ancient outpost like the ones on Taonas and Earth. No matter what the Cylons could not gain access to that kind of technology. Doing so would make it nearly impossible to stop them given the only real edge that the Terrans and their allies had was the technology they had at their disposal.

"Jumping in...three...two...one..." Kawalsky spoke clearly.

The Raptor's FTL activated in a flash of light, transporting the craft to its intended destination. Upon arrival the craft shook and seemed to scream a bit as it suddenly found itself within the atmosphere of a planet. Beside it hundreds more small Terran ships appeared in flashes of light, Vultures, Vipers, Raptors and Falcons mixed together in formation on course for the Cylon excavation site.

"How we doing Kawalsky?" Jack called from the back.

"All ships accounted for sir," Kawalsky replied. "Coming up on the LZ, its going to be a little hot."

That was an understatement if there ever was one because the moment he finished speaking he pushed down on the controls, dodging a barrage of anti-air rounds shot at the from the perimeter of the site. Other Terran craft weren't so lucky and were hit. Several plummeted down to the ground in flames, their shields barely doing anything against the new antimatter shells that the Cylons used, while others crashed, their crews jumping out of the back before they hit the ground and using anti-grav generators to cushion their landings. In response the Vipers and Vultures unleashed volleys of air-to-surface missiles at the gun emplacements, bombarding them in a series of explosions clearing the way for the Raptors and Falcons.

So much for no heavy combat...

"Set us down here!" Jack yelled. "We'll head in on foot."

"Yes sir!" Kawalsky shouted back.

The Raptor descended among others and landed on the flat ground below. Almost as one the Terran ground teams disembarked, most of them on foot though there were seven combat jeeps and a pair of Tiger-class Main Battle Tanks. Said tanks didn't take long to roll on through and take aim at the remaining Cylon gun emplacements. The resounding bang as the two tanks opened fire, the shells exploding from the chambers and tearing through the Cylons gun batteries. Jack, Daniel and Sam were right behind them as they tore into he Cylon defenders. The Terran jeeps literally ran right over dozens of Centurions and gunned down others as the Terran infantry swarmed over the area.

Jack vaulted over a Cylon-built fence and gunned down a Centurion using it as cover. Daniel was right behind him, his own rifle in up and firing a round through the chest of another Centurion that had appeared from the side. They were about to move forward when they heard more than saw Sam rush passed them both and drop to one knee with her rocket launcher over her shoulder. A second later she pressed down on the trigger and the rocket exploded from it, zooming across the battlefield. It struck a Cylon tank and exploded in a burst of flames leaving nothing but a wrecked hulk in its wake.

As more rockets and rounds were fired at the defending Centurions and their armour support, the Terran forces quickly reached the site, gunning down any lingering resistance they found. It was then that they heard it, loud footsteps echoing across the battlefield. Jack looked over towards where the sounds were originating from and saw what looked like a large hangar at the far end of the Cylon perimeter. Its doors slowly opened and 'it' walked out, its 'feet' hitting the ground with loud thuds. For a moment Jack could only stare as did many others at the much larger than average robot.

From what he could see it looked like an old first-gen Cylon Raider welded to a pair of mechanical legs. For a brief moment Jack couldn't help but hum the 'Imperial March' as he continued to stare at the thing. It turned and fired at the assembled Terran soldiers, its side mounted guns glaring as it spewed shot after shot at them. Some of the soldiers were hit and fell, others tried to return fire with their rifles but the rounds didn't even seem to hit the thing. Several people even threw grenades at the thing only for them to detonate against what appeared to be an orange barrier.

The thing had a god damn energy shield too!

"Carter?!" Jack yelled over the sound of gunfire. Sam's response was to fire a rocket at it which seemed to at least stagger it for a second before others joined in. As if they didn't have enough to deal with the Cylons were still building new crap to throw at them. After a few more seconds of fire the Walker unleashed a volley of missiles from its dorsal hatches and bombarded a pair of Tiger Tanks. Damn it, they were being slaughtered here! "Carter?!"

"Ion charge!" Sam suddenly yelled back as she passed him a small circular device from her back. "We need to get in close!"

Jack nodded and ran out of cover towards the waking monstrosity. Dozens of others were right behind shooting at it and trying to draw its fire. For a moment he thought that he was back on Earth playing football with him carrying the ball because that was certainly what it felt like to hold the blasted thing. After narrowly dodging a dozen rounds from one of the Walker's turrets he hurled the ion charge right at the thing's head. It struck the shield and flashed a bright white for a moment before going out as its shield flickered and died. This time when Sam and the others fired their rockets they all hit the Walker's 'head' and detonate, reducing it to a smouldering wreck.

"Have everyone fall back and regroup," Jack spoke into the comm. "Carter, Daniel, you two with me."

As the rest of the troops secured the area they'd come from, the three of them approached the centre of the excavation site passing the still burning wreckage of Centurions and tanks. Finally after walking for several minutes they reached it, a large structure of some kind buried in the ground, one that the recognised immediately.

"That's not Ancient," Daniel commented plainly.

"Carter, wasn't this supposed to be an Ancient outpost?" Jack inquired.

"Yes sir," Sam confirmed.

"Then why does that look like something built out of Replicator blocks?" Jack asked the question.

Replicators...

This was a Replicator outpost...

"So you've come," a familiar voice spoke from the structure. "But you're too late."

The side of the structure seemed to retract and a lone humanoid figure stepped out. Their weapons came up as one and aimed at the 'Cylon' that appeared. It was a One like any other but this version seemed to be covered in Replicator blocks. 'Cavil' he called himself, or at least that's what those of his line called themselves whenever they'd been captured.

"And I thought you couldn't get any worse," Jack commented. "Is this where you say 'resistance is futile' or something?"

"Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Samantha Carter and Doctor Daniel Jackson," Cavil spoke clearly. "You think of yourselves as the heroes of your race but you are nothing, just dust in the wind. We will be here long after your kind have gone and your worlds burned to ash."

"Yeah...no way in hell is that going to happen," Jack countered.

"What do you hope to gain from this?" Daniel asked suddenly. "Are you trying to forge an alliance with the Replicators? They'll consume you like they've done with countless other worlds."

"You are mistaken Doctor Jackson," Cavil responded simply. "The Replicators are advanced yes but also simpleminded, perfect for one such as I to integrate with."

Cylon and Replicator...

A merging of the two...

"Great," Jack said sarcastically. "A Lego-Cylon."

As if the damn Techno-bugs weren't bad enough...

"The names you give us are irrelevant," Cavil declares. "We simply are."

Jack's response was to raise his rifle and open fire. An orange energy shield sprang to life around Cavil and deflected the rounds shot at him as Jack switched to fully automatic. The moment his gun clicked empty Daniel opened fire with his own, forcing Cavil back a few steps under the assault. He returned fire with a pair of wrist-mounted plasma turrets similar to those used by the Kull Warriors of Anubis forcing them both to dodge out of the way. Jack wasn't lucky enough to get out of the way in time however and caught a plasma bolt to the shoulder and arm sending him to the ground. As Daniel returned fire, Sam quickly threw another ion charge at the One which sizzled for a moment before bringing down his personal shield. Daniel didn't let up as this was happening and eventually pierced the bio-Cylon's body causing him to fall back into the ground. Once he was down and it was clear that he wasn't going to get back up again they immediately rushed over to Jack who was lying face down on the ground.

And the blood...

So much blood...

"Jack!" Daniel shouted at him as he knelt down beside him and checked his pulse. "He's alive."

"Carter to _Prometheus_?!" Sam yelled into the comm. "I need an emergency beam out now, we have injured."

"Negative Major," Hammond responded. "We are currently bogged down by Cylon forces up here, can't risk dropping the shields to ring you out."

Damn it...

"This is Raptor-Delta-One," spoke the familiar voice of Kawalsky. "I am inbound on yours position, ETA damn quick."

Sam swore to herself that she owed him a beer after this was over, after all he'd always come through for them when they'd found themselves in a bad situation. A groaning noise from behind her reinforced the thought as the Replicator structure seemed to shake and start to rise. Daniel cursed beside her as the structure seemed to retract in on itself and reconfigure into a different form. Long metallic legs emerged from the central body, six of them unpacking the ground and lifting it up to a standing position.

A giant Replicator...

"Coming in hot!" Kawalsky shouted through the comm.

Raptor-Delta-One seemed to appear from above along with two others and unleashed a barrage of missiles into the beast's side. It staggered under the assault for a second before lifting one of its legs upwards and firing a bolt of energy, shooting down one of the attacking Raptors. Kawalsky landed beside the team whom quickly hurried inside with Daniel and Sam setting Jack down on the deck while the other Raptor drew the the giant Replicator's attention. The second Raptor was shot down as Kawalsky cursed and hit the thrusters propelling them skywards. A warning sound blared and he hit the emergency thrusters, narrowly avoiding a bolt of energy from the giant Replicator. The monstrosity itself wasn't going to let them go however and quickly launched itself upwards with its legs. It flew, its antigravity systems pushing it higher and higher as it chased after the fleeing Raptor.

"What's going on?!" Sam asked as she climbed into the cockpit.

"That thing is chasing us!" Kawalsky yelled back.

"Can we jump?!" Sam questioned as he narrowing avoided another energy bolt.

"Twenty seconds!" Kawalsky answered hurriedly.

Twenty seconds...

They'd be dead by then...

Just as another bolt came at them from the giant Replicator a flash of light signified the arrival of the _Prometheus_ , its shields flaring as it took the attack amidships. Volleys of drones and missiles launched from the Terran battlecruiser in retaliation and struck giant Replicator, tearing into it and detonating, seemingly blowing off several arms only for them to reconstruct a few seconds later. Sam looked over the readings and couldn't help but wonder how the Asgard ever won a battle with the Replicator fleet of these were the kind of ships they were fielding.

"Raptor-Delta-One, bay two is open," Hammond spoke through the comm. "Get aboard now while we hold it off."

"Yes sir," Kawalsky responded as he vectored the Raptor towards the designated bay.

On the bridge of the Terran battlecruiser Hammond clutched the arms of his chair as another energy bolt slammed into the shields. It was a risky move making the jump from one side of the planet to the other leaving the rest of the fleet to engage the Cylon forces there however the presence of what was essentially a Replicator warship in the area forced him to make the decision to engage it and rescue his away team.

"Raptor-Delta-One is aboard," Ronson reported. "Shields are nearly depleted sir."

"Come about and give me maximum thrust from the sublight engines," Hammond ordered.

"Course sir?" Ronson inquired as he input the command.

"The sun," Hammond answered.

Ronson wordlessly finished entering the command though the silence on the bridge that followed his CO's words was deafening. A second later the main engines of the _Prometheus_ came to life and the battlecruiser turned towards the local star itself. It accelerated towards it, the inertial dampeners nearly burning themselves out as the ship accelerated to half the speed of light. The giant Replicator followed after it, its much larger frame still firing off bolts of energy at the fleeing Terran warship.

"Shields are down to eight percent," Ronson informed.

"Evasive action," Hammond gave the order. "Transfer all power to the engines and aft shield array," emergency thrusters fired allowing the battlecruiser to dodge several energy bolts, the now reinforced rear shields absorbing the ones that struck. Minutes passed by before they reached the star and decelerated rapidly. The giant Replicator was right behind them, its arms stretching out to finish off the cornered Terran battlecruiser. "Divert all remaining power to the drones," Hammond ordered. "Target their engines and fire."

The last of the drones launched from the _Prometheus_ and shot towards the Replicator, striking its blocking armoured hide and digging in before detonating where the energy core was located. Crippled by the sudden assault the Replicator lurched slightly before the gravity of the star took hold of it. They tumbled and fell towards the surface of the star, its lower sections melting as it did so just from the sheer heat. For a moment George was afraid that it would recover like it had done previously but by the time it did, it was already disappearing beneath the surface.

"The Replicator ship has been destroyed," Ronson reported. "Sir, we're caught in the star's gravity well and main engines are starting to strain to maintain our position."

"Sublight?" Hammond questioned.

"Main engines are at twenty-four percent and falling," Ronson replies. "We can't break free of the gravity well sir."

"...Engage the FTL," Hammond gave the order.

"Sir?" Ronson asked in surprise.

"You heard me," Hammond told him. "Execute FTL jump."

To date no one had attempted a space fold while in orbit of a star before, especially without entering any coordinates like now. There was no time to calculate a proper jump and if they didn't do it now they were all dead anyways. Ronson quickly entered the command and shunted all of the ship's remaining power to the FTL drive. The _Prometheus_ disappeared in a flash of light later, reappearing in the middle of deep space. It drifted for a few seconds before the lights flickered and died. Before anyone could say anything the emergency power kicked in and illuminated the bridge once again.

"Status?" Hammond inquired.

"We're dead in the water sir," Ronson reported. "Emergency power only."

"Position?" Hammond questioned.

"Unknown sir," Ronson replied. "No contacts detected."

"Have Major Carter start repairs as soon as possible."


	15. Frontlines

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter15: Frontlines

 **August 2004  
** **Sudaria System  
** **UNS Daedalus  
Main Bridge**

Colonel Steven Caldwell stood at the main viewport overlooking the planet below, a green world called Dagan by the local human population. It had been years since they'd come to this galaxy and so far they had explored dozens of systems, sometimes catching the attention of the Wraith whom were slowly starting to wake up. The _Daedalus_ and the new Eos-class destroyers constructed at Lantea were launched to find and destroy any Wraith vessel or outpost they could find. In their search they'd come across several worlds with human populations though only a handful were industrialized, one of which was called the Genii. They'd acquired the location of a Hive-ship from a downed dart and had been trying to build a nuke to sneak aboard it.

A decent plan...

The Terrans took it a step further though...

After brief negotiations between the Terrans and the Genii as well as an infiltration mission to the Hive-ship, they managed to acquire the location of forty Hive-ships. The _Daedalus_ and a fleet of Eos-class destroyers were dispatched from Lantea to the locations of the Hive-ships soon after. The result was a brief one-sided slaughter as the Terrans jumped in, nuked everything and then jumped out, an action they repeated until the Wraith started to awaken more of their numbers. Hopefully by the time they got their act together, the rest of the alliance fleet in the Milky Way will have won the war against the Goa'uld and Cylons. Even just the second and third Terran fleets would be well received by the Atlantis Expedition.

"Erm...Sir? Sensors just detected a series of jumps at the outer edge of the system," Kleinman spoke up suddenly. "Displacement and subspace echo is consistent with Cylon FTL."

Caldwell could only stare for a moment in surprise, after all as far as he was aware the Cylons were 'contained' in the Milky Way for the moment. The notion that they might be here in Pegasus was unsettling in the extreme to say the least. Best to investigate and see what was going on. If the Cylons were here then the situation in Pegasus had changed and Homeworld Command needed to be informed.

"...Have Colonel Sheppard's team launch in one of the jumpers," Caldwell ordered. "And dispatch a subspace message to Atlantis, possible Cylon contact at the Sudaria System, requesting support."

"Yes sir," Kleinman confirmed the order.

* * *

Colonel John Sheppard always loved flying, whether it was a Vulture or a Jumper didn't matter to him. As long as he could fly somewhere then that was enough for him. Idly he moved his hands over the controls of the Jumper and eased out of the _Daedalus_ ' hangar bay and entered the coordinates for the newly fitted FTL drive. It took a bit of work but McKay had finally managed to install Terran space fold drives aboard the Ancient Puddle Jumpers giving them limited FTL capability.

Personally he would have preferred a Falcon or one of those new Raptors compared to this thing but those were being thrown at the Cylons and Goa'uld back in the Milky Way so the ever growing alliance couldn't really afford to send much in the way of military supplies to Pegasus. It was a good thing that the Atlantis Expedition has discovered a cache of these Jumpers at Atlantis otherwise he didn't know what they'd have had to use, at least before Lantea had enough industry to start producing new ships.

"Jumping in three...two...one..." McKay said before the drive activated and shifted them to their destination. "Cloak is active."

"Okay let's see what we have here," John spoke as he brought up a hologram of the sensor data in front of them.

"What are they?" Teyla asked the question.

"They're Cylons," McKay answered. "A race of machines created by the Twelve Colonies of Kobol years ago."

"They went to war with their creators and then came after Earth. Now they're here," Lieutenant Ford continues.

"Killer robots?" Ronan Dex mused.

"We're still at war with them back in our home galaxy," John explained. "Though hopefully not for much longer."

"...This doesn't make sense," McKay suddenly spoke up. "Take a look at their configuration."

John narrowed his eyes at the readings as confusion set in. According to the sensor data and visual feed there were dozens of transports guarded by eight Type-I Cylon Basestars though they were heavily modified. Not only that but they were launching a patrol of first-gen Raiders, again heavily modified judging by the presence of pulse lasers. What was going on here?

"That's weird," John said finally before a series of red dots appeared on the hologram. "Now what?"

"Hyperspace windows opening," McKay explained. "It's the Wraith."

Space tore itself open not too far away from the Cylon fleet as fifteen ships emerged from hyperspace, their sensors immediately identifying thirteen of them as Wraith cruisers while the last two were the eleven kilometer long Hive-ships. The Raiders were already moving to engage as the Wraith ships started launching a seemingly endless wave of darts. Having already been launched and ready, the Raiders fired a volley of missiles from their underside launchers which intercepted the darts and carved into their formations.

"W-what the hell?!" McKay stammered in surprise at the sight.

The cruisers had moved into range at this point and bolts of energy shot forth, crossing the distance between the two fleets and slamming into the rapidly depleting shields of the Cylon ships. In response the laser cannons aboard the Basestars lashed out, carving into the armoured hides of the cruisers soon followed by a barrage of antimatter missiles. Most of them were shot down but three managed to make it through and detonated against their hulls, smashing their space frames into scattering debris.

"...What do we do?" Teyla asked the question as she saw the Hive-ships move into range now.

"...I say we get some answers," John replied finally. "Drop cloak and raise shields, signal the _Daedalus_ that we are moving to intercept the Wraith fleet."

"Sheppard?" McKay asked him.

"Protocol is clear, the Dagan are our allies now so they fall under our protection until they can stand on their own," John reasoned. "We'll deal with the Cylons after we've finished off the Wraith."

" _Daedalus_ acknowledges," Ford informed. "Reinforcements are on their way."

The Jumper seemingly materialised as its cloak disengaged and it accelerated towards the closest Hive-ship. As more darts launched from the Hive-ship to intercept them dozens of Vultures appeared around them in flashes of light, launching volleys of missiles against the swarm, each one carrying a five kiloton warhead. Nuclear light appeared in the center of the darts' formation consuming a good chunk of the fighter screen and allowing the lone Jumper to make it through. Unlike the Vultures, the Jumper wasn't carrying mere nuclear ordinance but Naquadah-boosted warheads ranging at one point two gigatons. With no fighter cover the missiles launched from the attacking Jumper struck true and detonated, light rippling outwards for a few seconds as secondary explosions tore the rest of the Hive-ship apart.

"Target destroyed," McKay spoke up. "I hope you've got a plan Sheppard because I'm picking up a fresh wave of darts launching from the other Hive-ship."

He didn't need to reply as the answer came from the sudden appearance of the _Daedalus_ as it jumped directly between its strike craft and the approaching swarm of darts. Railguns spewed trinium rounds at the darts and tore into their formations as anti-fighter nukes shot forth from its ventral launchers, donating amongst them. Looking at his controls he saw the port hangar bay was open and guided the Jumper into land, effortlessly passing through its shield as bolts of energy from the surviving darts slammed into it.

On the bridge Caldwell almost winced as the last Hive-ship opened fire on them, its much more powerful anti-capital ship cannons doing far better to try and drain their shields than the smaller darts or even the cruisers that were even now still engaging the Cylon fleet. Never in a million years did he think he'd be saving Cylons, especially not in another galaxy. Still, Sheppard made the right call as far as he was concerned. The readings they were getting from the Cylon ships were strange and no doubt Homeworld Command would want answers, one of which was why these Cylons were so far away from the Milky Way or Andromeda.

"Sir I'm detecting another wave of darts launching from the Hive-ship," Kleinman reported.

"Concentrate all fire on those dart bays," Caldwell ordered. "And bring the PPC online."

The _Daedalus_ angled to starboard and unleashed a almost never-ending barrage of trinium rounds at the unshielded hangar bays of the Hive-ship, tearing the darts apart even as they launched. After several seconds of continuous fire secondary explosions ripples out from the bays, destroying the rest of the still launching darts and 'hurting' the Hive-ship to the point that its return fire reduced significantly. _Daedalus_ ' railguns kept firing for another few seconds before the last of their ammunition ran out and the battlecruiser reoriented itself to face the wounded Hive-ship head on once again.

"Railguns are depletes," Kleinman informed. "PPC is charged and ready."

"Fire," Caldwell gave the order.

The Particle Projector Cannon was the Terrans first attempt at creating an energy weapon using reverse engineered technology from the Lantean Weapons Satellite and Velonans. The weapon itself was massive and was now slung on the underside of the _Daedalus_ taking up the length of the hull. It was the first to be installed on a Terran warship and had been tested repeatedly on asteroids but never on an enemy vessel, at least not until today.

Blue energy gathered inside the tube and focused through the crystal at the front of it before lancing out, crossing the distance between the two ships. It smashed through the side of the Hive-ship like a knife through butter, gutting the massive vessel from port to starboard. It wasn't as massive a beam as the weapon's satellite was capable of but it was still as powerful as the Velonan version they had built. Secondary explosions ripped what was left of the Hive-ship apart a few seconds later, its space frame breaking apart due to the structural damage it had sustained. Finally after seeing the last of their Hive-ships fall, the remaining Wraith cruisers broke off and fled into hyperspace, leaving their still surviving darts behind. It wasn't long before the Cylon Raiders tore through what was left of the darts that survived and turned their attention to the Terran battle group. Just as the last of the darts were destroyed, the rest of the Cylon fleet including their modified Raider squadrons jumped away.

"All Wraith contacts have been neutralised," Kleinman reported clearly. "The Cylon fleet has jumped out, their subspace echo places their jump vector seventeen light years away in one of the nearby systems."

"Relaunch Shepard's Jumper and have him track the Cylon fleet. Once our shields have recharged and our ammunition stores have been replenished from Atlantis using the local the Stargate in the System we'll jump after them," Caldwell ordered. "Once the gate is connected get me a line to Doctor Weir."

Something told him that they were going to need her for this one...


	16. Repository

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter16: Repository

 **August 2004  
** **Uncharted System  
** **Basestar-05  
Command Center**

Aboard the designated flagship of the Rebel Cylon fleet walked a lone figure in a Colonial jumpsuit of all things, her footsteps fast and loud as she rushed through the still dimly lit corridors of the Basestar. They'd been certain that they'd lost both the humans and those disgusting aliens three systems back but if the sudden alarms were any indication then that wasn't as true as they hoped. It had been years since the civil war with the other Cylon faction that had been advocating genocide against all organics, especially humans. The war was brief but in the end the rebel Cylons had managed to escape and fled in whatever ships they could acquire.

Once away from their former brethren they had set a course for a neighbouring galaxy and started the long trek across the stars similar to the one they first made when they left their original home galaxy so long ago. After many years they finally reach this galaxy and tried to settle down on the first habitable planet they could find. For a while they prospered, at least until the first alien fighters appeared through the strange artefact they had discovered on the planet. They were shot down before they could do much damage however it was only the beginning. It wasn't long before several alien cruisers appeared in orbit and attacked what forces they had in space at the time. Dozens of Basestars were lost before the aliens broke off to regroup, fleeing back into the other space. The next time they came it was with a pair of massive eleven kilometer long carrier-like ships which fielded thousands of fighters.

In the end the Rebel Cylons were forced to flee into deep space once again, this time being hounded by the aliens every step of the way. Since then they'd stumbled upon several inhabited planets housing human populations of all creatures whom spoke of the aliens-the Wraith-as monsters that killed their people every few generations and devoured them. For a while they thought that they would have to flee to another galaxy yet again when suddenly they'd been cornered by a Wraith fleet only to be saved by the new human faction that had shown up a few years ago. After the battle it was deemed too dangerous to make contact and they'd jumped away. Now they'd been found again and everyone was dreading it.

"What is it?" the woman asked as she stepped into the CIC. She was a model Six though unlike many of her sisters she had opted to dye her hair brown instead of the usual blond they were renowned for.

"Take a look," one model Eight responded as she gestured to one of the screens littering the side wall. "DRADIS spotted it seven minutes ago."

She recognised the image the moment she saw it, after all she'd been watching the footage recovered by their gun cameras for hours showing the particular ship being displayed. A human warship reminiscent of a Colonial Battlestar though much smaller and if the footage was to be believed boasted a energy weapon of some kind that was even more powerful than those used by the Wraith. Had it been tracking them? Frak, she needed to get the rest of the fleet out of here before things got ugly.

"Have the rest of the fleet jump to the emergency coordinates," the Six ordered. "That includes the rest of the Basestars."

"What about us?" a Three asked from the side.

"We're staying," the Six answered. "I want to talk with them."

"Talk with humans," the Three snorted in response. "This'll be good."

Silently the Eight agreed and with good reason. The local humans that they'd encountered so far were primitive and hardly worth their time, especially with the Wraith hounding them, but these humans had proven they could be a threat. They needed to be cautious despite their general apathy towards the human race, after all just because they didn't side with Cavil and his genocidal policies didn't mean they thought much of humans in general.

"This is Basestar-05 to human vessel," the Six spoke into the comm. "Identify yourself and state your intentions."

Simple and direct, exactly what was needed she thought idly. Either the humans would blow them out of space or they would talk with them, either way the rest of the fleet was safe for now. If her ship didn't report back soon then the others would assume they had been destroyed and would continue to jump away. How far did they have to run though? Another galaxy? They'd already left two galaxies behind, the first to the Colonials and the second to Cavil and his quest of genocide.

They were tired of running...

"This is Colonel Steven Caldwell representing the United Nations of Earth and her colonies. We wish to open a dialog," came the response.

Earth...

The Thirteenth Tribe...

Or should that be the 'First' Tribe?

"What do you want with us?" she asked the question.

"You are Cylons," the Colonel answered. "We've encountered Cylons before-back in our home galaxy-and we've been at war ever since. You are obviously not the same faction as them judging by your ships so I have to wonder how you ended up here in this galaxy."

The Earthers were at war with the Cylons? Damn it Cavil, that idiot's legacy still plagued them even here. How was she supposed to salvage this? She dreaded to think what the death toll was since they fled. If she could go back in time she would have boxed his entire manufacturing line and then purged the whole lot of them. She still remembered that day...

"...Perhaps we should talk face to face."

 **August 2004  
** **Uncharted System  
** **UNS Prometheus  
General's Office  
**

"A Cylon splinter faction?"

The words held a slight undertone of disbelief and confusion as he spoke them. After all, the last time the Cylons reportedly had a divide in their society it resulted in the attack on Earth decades ago. For General George Hammond it was mildly disturbing that it had happened again though this time the splinter faction seemed to be reasonable compared to the Guardians.

"Yes sir," Sam confirmed with a nod. "Lantea reports that the 'Cylon Alliance' as they're calling themselves met Doctor Weir and wish only find a world to call their own. Apparently they had begun to settle the Pegasus galaxy when the Wraith attacked them forcing them to flee back into deep space."

"And the situation with the Wraith?" George asked further.

"Reports indicate that the bulk of their species are now awake and are targeting human worlds. Our ships in Pegasus are holding the line for now but long-range scans show that they're heading in the direction of the Lantean System," she answered. "Thankfully the nearest Hive fleets are months away."

Great, that was just what everyone needed, the entire Wraith species descending on Atlantis. No doubt Homeworld Command will have started organising a response fleet to aid in the city's defence, after all Atlantis' database was filled with Ancient knowledge, stuff that even the Asgard and Nox hadn't invented yet. Hopefully the Pegasus defence fleet led by the Daedalus could take out a few Hive fleets on their way to Lantea before they needed to be reinforced.

That still left the situation in be Milky Way...

"What about the Cylons here in this galaxy?" George asked the question.

"The new Type-VI Basestars being deployed by the Replicator-enhanced Cylons have struck three more systems along the border and seem to be encroaching on the Goa'uld lines. They seem to be heading for Dakara, the Goa'uld capital world. According to our Jaffa and Tok'ra allies it was the place where the first Jaffa were created," Sam explained. "We've also pulled our forces back from the Goa'uld front to try and hit the Cylon shipyards at the former Tollan homeworld."

After conquering the planets Tollan and Serita, the Cylons had turned them both into massive factory worlds which were even now producing legions of Replicator-enhanced Centurions and Raiders not to mention their new Type-VI Basestars which were entirely made out of Replicator blocks at this point. The recent strike against the system resulted in failure and in the end the Tollan had chosen to deny the enemy the satisfaction of keeping their old homeworld by detonating several Neutrino-ion warheads on the surface, destroying the planet and all the Cylons on it.

"So where do we stand?" George sighed as he leaned back in his chair.

"An SG team from Luna recently reported finding what they believe to be an Ancient Repository like the one originally encountered by Doctor Littlefield during the first Stargate mission," Sam answered as she read the reports. "Homeworld Command wants us to secure the Repository and return it to Earth for study."

An Ancient Repository...

The first one had led to the discovery of the Ancient outpost in Antarctica which had later been the only reason that they'd been able to destroy the Cylon Guardians when they attacked Earth all those years ago. Now another one had been found and would hopefully lead to something equally as grand.

They needed all the help they could get these days...

"Do whatever it takes Major."

 **August 2004  
** **Uncharted System  
Unnamed Planet  
Ancient Ruins** **  
**

Colonel Jack O'Neill took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes for a second before putting them back on. P3X-439 was a nice enough planet and the area they were in was typical countryside as far as he was concerned, but the sun was still murder on the eyes after awhile. The only thing worse would have been spending an afternoon on Abydos with their ridiculous heat as well as sunlight.

"Carter, please tell me you have something?" Jack asked the question.

"Unfortunately removing the Repository is proving to be more challenging than initially believed," Sam replied with a sigh. "We're afraid that if we just remove it then it might be damaged."

Like the first Repository this one was imbedded in the wall, however unlike it this one was built into the stone wall of a block with a damaged statue seemingly sitting atop it. God, he honestly just wanted to head back to the ship which was half a kilometer east of them waiting for the large lorry to load up the Repository and deliver it to the ship. The Simpsons was on tonight and he didn't want to miss it.

"What about getting what we want from it without moving it?" Jack inquired as he looked over at the wall mounted artefact.

"The only known way to it is to look into the interface and have it download everything into your mind like it did with Doctor Littlefield. I'm working on a more traditional interface but it's slow going," Sam answered.

Damn...

It was a waiting game then...

He was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of a loud bang accompanied by a flash of light from above. He looked up immediately and spotted the source, a massive familiar ship. It's grey sheen reflected the light from the sun as it's blocky nature started to ripple.

A Type-VI Basestar...

"Damn," Jack cursed as he ran towards the statue. "Come on!"

Gunfire erupted from the base of the statue as suddenly dozens of Centurions—now made from replicator blocks—dropped down to the ground from the Basestar. The SG teams holding position at the statue quickly gunned them down, the rounds from their Rail-Rifles smashing the Centurions apart before they could orientate their new shoulder-mounted ion pulse cannons at the defenders. The Cylons had gone through a lot of remodelling since their merging with the Replicators and none more so than the Centurions. Standing at seven feet tall the latest model of Centurion was now impervious to energy weapons as the Jaffa-both in the Rebellion and under the Goa'uld-could attest to.

Fortunately good old projectile weaponry still worked...

For now at least...

"Carter?!" Jack yelled as he ducked behind one of the pillars.

"I need more time!" Sam shouted as she took aim and fired off a round at an approaching Centurion hiring it in the chest. "The interface isn't ready."

Damn it all...

"We're out of time," Daniel gritted our before lunging at the Repository only to be grabbed by Jack and pulled away.

"What are you doing?!" Jack almost growled at him.

"It's the only way," Daniel told him. "We have to do something."

He was right, they couldn't hold their position for long, not with a Cylon army attacking them and a Basestar hanging over their heads. Idly he saw missiles and drones from the Prometheus launching up from its position on the ground and hitting the Basestar doing considerable damage but it wasn't going to be enough, especially with his radio seemingly yelling something about more ships in orbit. Sam's interface wasn't ready and would take days to finish and that was with help from the Tollan and Aschen.

There was only one other option...

"You're the only one who even understands the Ancient's language," Jack said clearly before lunging at the interface. "So it has to be someone else."

"Jack!" Daniel shouted. The interface changed and warped, grabbing Jack's head a causing him to grab hold of its sides. His mind burned as the light hit his eyes, knowledge that he didn't understand suddenly being shoved through his head. Eventually it ended and the interface retracted having finished the download and he slumped to the ground, exhaustion hitting him suddenly. Sam and Daniel caught him before he collapsed.

"Colonel," Sam spoke worriedly. "Are you alright?"

"No..." Jack trailed off.

"We need to get him out of here," Daniel said quickly.

"Away team to Prometheus," Sam spoke into the comm. "We need an evac now!"

"Negative Major," Ronson answered. "Skies are too hot right now for our birds to pick you up."

Damn it, they couldn't move with the Cylons hanging over their heads and it was only a mater of time before the Centurions overran their position. The Stargate maybe? They'd be slaughtered trying to make a run for it before they even made it half way there. Just then they saw the Prometheus lift off from the ground and fly directly over them putting itself between the statue and the hovering Basestar. Railguns fired from the lower hull and bombarded the Cylon army.

"The Rings!" Daniel yelled.

"Let's go!" Dam shouted as they moved.

Carrying Jack between them proved to be a challenge but eventually they made it. The teleportation rings aboard the Prometheus came down and surrounded them and a moment later they were in the ship's Ring Room. Doctor Fraiser was already there with her medical team and quickly placed Jack on the stroller before wheeling him away.

* * *

Up on the Bridge, General George Hammond gritted his teeth as another ion blast from the Basestar slammed into the rapidly depleting shields. As if the damn things were now not only made out of Replicator blocks making energy weapons useless against them weren't bad enough, they were now armed with ion cannons on par with those used by the Asgard. He'd been getting reports from orbit that the Cylon fleet which jumped in was already overwhelming the Aschen and Colonial fleets with only the Terran and Tollan ships being able to actually hurt the damn things because of their drones. Thank god that the Tollan had figured out how to manufacture drones now and had agreed to share that knowledge otherwise the Terrans would have already depleted their stockpile by this point in the war.

"The last of the ground teams are aboard sir," Ronson reported.

"Get us out of here," George ordered. The FTL drive activated and the Prometheus jumped away a moment later, reappearing fifteen light years away in the middle of deep space. It was soon followed by the rest of the alliance fleet. For a second they thought that was it but the moment was shattered by the proximity alarms blaring. George looked up and saw dozens of Type-VI Basestars directly in front of them.

"Forty-two Basestars detected," Ronson informed worriedly. "They're launching Raiders."

Alliance fighters launched in waves in response and moved to intercept the Raiders as the two fleets orientated to bring their full weapons to bear on each other. Ion bolts and antimatter missiles shot forth from the Basestars a moment later. The Colonial and Terran ships were the first to fire, shooting down the missiles that tried to get through. Drones from the Terran and Tollan ships spewed forth a second later as the ion bolts smashed through a dozen ships, two Hebridian and one Gadmeer. The launched drones quickly hit their mark and battered down the shields of the Basestars. A second later Tollan starfighters jumped into the center of the Cylons lines and launched their payloads, twelve Neutrino-ion torpedoes. George covered his eyes as the warheads hit their mark and detonated in a series of bright flashes. When the light died down most of the Cylon fleet was destroyed however the elation didn't last long. A few seconds later more Basestars appeared in flashes of light, hundreds more.

"Erm sir," Ronson spoke hesitantly. "I'm reading over two hundred Basestars on sensors."

Collectively the alliance fleet had one hundred and eleven surviving ships in their fleet. They were outnumbered two to one and with only a slight technological gap at this point since the Cylons had merged with the Replicators. They couldn't win, not with the way things were. The only option George could think of was to recharge the FTL Drive and jump towards Earth. Hopefully they could lose them in the borderland and reach the recently built Ares military outpost.

"Prepare to jump," George gave the order.

"Sir, hyperspace windows opening," Ronson reported suddenly. Space tore open a second later as hundreds of ships emerged back into normal space, ones he recognised immediately. Asgard warships, most of which were of the O'Neill-class. They opened fire the moment they arrived and smashed through dozens of Basestars within seconds. Ion bolts carrying enough kinetic energy to pulverise a continent blew through Basestars far better than the Tollan-designed ones were capable of.

"This is Supreme Commander Thor of the Asgard fleet," a familiar voice came over the comm. "Our forces will hold off the Cylons, escape while you can."

"Thank you Thor," George responded. "Your timing couldn't be better."

As the Asgard fleet engaged the Cylons, one by one the alliance ships jumped away until none remained. Preoccupied by the Asgard they were unable to pursue and were forced to withdraw moments later. The Asgard were the last to leave the area setting a course for Earth where they would meet up with the leaders of the alliance for the upcoming conference between the various worlds. The Fifth Race were well on their way...


	17. Union

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter17: Union

 **August 2004  
** **Sol System  
** **Earth  
Geneva**

Major Samantha Carter couldn't help but be amazed at the sight below them as news cameras circled the central table where dozens of leaders sat discussing amongst themselves the new treaty. Idly she thought back to her idea of a federation of planetary governments but she hadn't actually expected it to happen. Now she was looking right at the charter...

"It's hard to believe it's finally happening," Daniel said quietly.

"It's about time," Doctor Weir mused. She'd returned from Atlantis to assist in the final negotiations and had been consulted more than ever to iron out the details. "I never thought I'd see the day this all came together."

They spotted President Henry Hayes—the designated spokesperson of the United Nations—step forward and address the other faction leaders. He spoke to them about the charter and the war, quickly rallying them behind him as they signed it one after another. Finally the charter was signed by everyone—even the Aschen—and with it officially going into effect there were cheers from the surrounding witnesses not just in the chamber but also everyone watching both on Earth and on everyone world in the alliance.

No...

That wasn't their name anymore...

"Have they settled on a name yet?" Daniel inquired.

"Yes they have," Weir nodded. "It was the Asgard who suggested it."

"What was it?" Daniel asked the question.

"The Stargate Union."

* * *

Colonel Jack O'Neill idly glanced at his TV as it showed another news report about the founding of the Stargate Union, an intergalactic alliance of nations modelled similarly to the United Nations on Earth and her colonies. Each faction had their own space and territory still however the Union would be a combined military and government overseeing everything from exploration to defence. He shook his head as he grabbed a beer and sat down on the sofa next to his now twenty year old son.

Charlie was currently on his data-pad but the way he was occasionally glancing at him showed how worried he was more than anything. Cassandra was in the kitchen with her adoptive mother having both come over when Janet discharged him from the hospital on Triton. He'd wanted to go home, it was as simple as that. Now he was back home he had started speaking Ancient and drawing things—gate coordinates mostly—though one of those things was the image of a large structure seemingly buried in a mountain.

Funny...

He didn't think that he was that good of a drawer...

"I'll be fine," Jack spoke suddenly. "If it gets to the point where I end up like Doctor Littlefield then I'll just ask Thor to remove it, he still owes me a favour."

The Ancient Repository had downloaded its entire knowledge database directly into his head and like Ernest before him he could feel himself losing pieces of his mind as them went on. It wouldn't be long, a few days at the most before he couldn't even speak English anymore and would be walking almost on autopilot. He wanted to use the knowledge as much as he could before it got to that point though, something that Homeworld Command agreed with.

Or was that Stargate Command now?

"I know that dad but we're still worried, you know?" Charlie reasoned.

"I'll be fine," Jack said again.

Besides there was something there at the back of his mind just out of reach, something important and urgent like he needed to be somewhere sooner rather than later. Hopefully when Sam, Daniel and Charles came around later they could figure it out. Just then Cassandra came back in the room and walked over to sit down next to Charlie. They'd been dating a little over a year now and last he'd heard they had moved in together over in Sam Francisco.

"...Is there something going on here because you both of have been quiet today?" Janet asked them both as she came back into the room.

Jack had to agree on that...

"Yeah..." Charlie trailed off looking unsure how to continue.

"We have some news," Cassandra replied hesitantly.

Jack and Janet could only look between the two of them in confusion...

"Yesterday I asked Cassy to marry me," Charlie answered. "And she said yes."

Wait—what?

"We're engaged," Cassandra said with a smile as she took of her glove and showed her hand complete with an engagement ring.

It was ruby red...

Janet almost squealed and pulled her adoptive daughter into her arms. Jack on the other hand smiled and ruffled his son's hair. It was about damn time in his opinion, after all the two of them had been dancing around each other for years while they were at school and even after they got together they still seemed to drag on. He couldn't be prouder of the man he had become...


	18. Dakara

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter18: Dakara

 **August 2004  
Deep Space** **  
SGUS Prometheus  
Main Bridge** **  
**

General George Hammond stepped onto the Bridge and walked over to the viewport, his boots echoing as they hit the floor under him. Looking out he couldn't help but be amazed at the sight of fleet before him. Six hundred and eight two ships of various classes flew in formation alongside his own, each one belonging to a different faction.

Each one now a part of the Stargate Union...

Idly he spotted the _O'Neill_ flying at the head of the fleet, its massive frame overshadowing most of the vessels in the vicinity. It was one of the many Asgard warships in the fleet yet seemed to stand out just as much as the Prometheus did, though that might have just been his thoughts of Colonel O'Neill and his recent assimilation of the knowledge from the Ancient Repository.

Speaking of which, Jack had been adamant about being present for the upcoming assault though he couldn't explain why even with Doctor Jackson translating for him. While he was personally conflicted over letting him go back into the field unfortunately Homeworld Command-sorry-Stargate Command had authorised his return to active duty but even then George was forced to appoint Major Carter as the team's CO, at least for the duration of this operation.

"All ships are ready to jump on your order sir," Ronson spoke clearly.

"...Execute jump," George gave the order as he turned away from the viewport and sat down in his chair. As one every single ship in the fleet disappeared in flashes of light, each ship having been refitted with a space-fold drive. They all reappeared above a brownish coloured planet a moment later, their momentum carrying them forward slightly.

"All ships are secure from jump Sir," Ronson reported. "Sensors are picking up Goa'uld ships on intercept."

"Fire at will," Hammond gave the order.

A massive Goa'uld fleet was already in orbit and turning towards them. Before they could fire however the Union fleet opened up on them, drones, plasma and ion bolts shot forth striking the surprised Goa'uld fleet. Dozens of Goa'uld ships of all classes were blasted to pieces before they could get their shields up, others were smashed like glass even with their shields raised. In the course of just a few minutes the three hundred Ha'tak motherships were reduced to half of their number as strike craft from the Union fleet launched from their own motherships.

"Message from the O'Neill," Ronson informed. "We are to take the planet's Stargate."

"Acknowledged," Hammond confirmed. "Take us in."

The _Prometheus_ soared through the center of the broken Goa'uld fleet, a pair of Tollan and Aschen warships flanking it providing support. After taking several hits from plasma fire the Prometheus descended down towards the surface where the Stargate was located along with a massive temple-like structure built into the side of a tall mountain. The ship's lower railguns took aim and bombarded the area around the Stargate, ripping apart the few surface to air staff cannons in the area.

Colonel Jack O'Neill and the rest of his team ringed down to the surface a moment later, their weapons raised. Sam was the first to react when a few of the surviving Jaffa in the area tried to take aim at them. She turned towards them and gunned them down, trinium rounds tearing through their armour like they weren't even there. Meanwhile Daniel quickly ran over to the DHD and started dialling. After a few seconds the Stargate activated and Daniel quickly pressed the button on the transmitter attached to his waist.

The Stargate shutdown a moment later and then reactivated. Suddenly a flood of people came through, heavily armoured and bearing the Oprican flag over the Union symbol. Say what you wanted about the Oprican fleet, it was their ground forces that were considered the best in the galaxy. Already the Oprican army were securing the area, taking down any surviving enemy Jaffa. Jack wasn't paying attention to any of this however, instead focusing on running towards the Ancient temple built into the side of the mountain with Sam and Daniel following close behind.

Once the Stargate was secured the Prometheus quickly disappeared in a flash of light, reappearing back in orbit not far from the O'Neill which was trading fire with a pair of Ha'tak, pulverising them both to drifting debris. Just as the second Ha'tak was destroyed a blast of lightning-like slammed into its shield from the side and ripped through its engine pods. The rest of the vessel listed for a second as its lights flickered and died, its reactors failing.

"Report?!" Hammond shouted as a burst of plasma fire struck the port side shield of the Prometheus causing it to flicker.

"That blast came from the Goa'uld flagship," Ronson informed. "It's their superweapon."

Anubis' Dreadnought...

"Lock all weapons on that mothership," Hammond ordered. "Fire at will."

The _Prometheus_ accelerated sharply, its main engines flaring to life as more plasma bolts slammed into its rapidly depleting shields. Drones and missiles exploded from their tubes before veering towards the Goa'uld flagship. The drones hit their mark first, punching through its shields and hitting the power conduits along its superstructure. The missiles however were shot down long before they even reached their target, the dreadnought's smaller staff cannons hurling dozens of plasma bolts one after the other.

"Enemy ship's shields are down and they have sustained moderate damage to their power systems," Ronson reported. "Energy spike!"

A flash of light nearly blinded him as the dreadnought fired its main weapon again, lightning-like energy lancing out striking the Prometheus amidships. Even with their shields reinforced as Ronson shunted all power to their rapidly failing, the starboard hangar bay was ripped off and the rest of the ship was sent spiralling away, its barriers barely absorbing the brunt of the attack. After a few seconds of spinning the emergency thrusters fired and brought the crippled ship to a halt as the dreadnought pursued.

"R-report?" Hammond gritted our as he held onto the arms of chair.

"Shields are down, hull breaches on decks three through nine, power conduits have blown out across the ship," Ronson gritted our as he pressed his hand against the side of his head. "Enemy ship is reorienting."

They were moving to finish them off...

"Give we ship-wide," Hammond told before speaking into the comm. "This is the General, all hands abandon ship, I repeat all hands abandon ship. Make your way to the escape pods and head for the surface."

The sound of a siren blaring echoed throughout the ship as everyone rushed towards the nearest escape pod they could find. Most of the Bridge crew got up too and ran out the door save for one William Ronson.

"Sir," Ronson saluted.

"That means you too Colonel," Hammond spoke clearly.

"Sir with all due respect I'm not going anywhere," Ronson responded just as clearly.

"...Divert all remaining power to engines and shields," Hammond finally gave the order. "Set a collision course and give me ramming speed."

Anubis' Dreadnought opened fire at that moment, plasma bolts lashing out at the crippled Terran battlecruiser. Escape pods launched from their births and descended towards the planet below as the main engines of the _Prometheus_ flared to life one last time. The _Prometheus_ sailed through the space between them, its shields giving out to plasma fire allowing to bolts to slam into its armoured hull before it slammed into the much larger vessel. Its reactor went critical a moment later, consuming both ships in a miniature star for a moment before going out leaving nothing but floating debris in its wake.

* * *

Aboard the Battlestar _Galactica_ , Admiral William Adama stood holding onto the holo-table as another shockwave slammed into their shields. Idly he noted that the blast originated from the Battlestar _Pegasus_ , its engine core having gone critical due to coordinated fire from a pair of Sokar-class dreadnoughts. Already he was wishing that the Admiralty hadn't recalled him and left the _Valkyrie_ with the pursuit fleet after Loki. He'd much rather have been out there hunting the little grey bastard down than here in this warzone fighting an entire alien empire.

"Cain's dead and her battlegroup with her," Tigh gritted out as he looked over the readings. "Gods damn snakes just took out the _Atlantia_ too."

They were winning for what good that was, already a third of the fleet was either destroyed or disabled, and the other two thirds were either breaking off to recharge their shields or were running low on ordinance, namely drones. Thankfully the bulk of the Goa'uld fleet was neutralised and the rest were trying to regroup only to be chased down by the Aschen and Tollan battlegroups. The _Galactica_ itself had just finished pummelling a pair of unshielded Ha'tak motherships into scrap metal with their gun batteries after nuking a Sokar-class dreadnought mere moments ago.

The old girl still had it...

Suddenly the flash of pings appeared on the holo-table, jump vectors, hundreds of them. All centered around a much larger signature many times larger than the others. "Frak," Tigh cursed as he looked over the readings. "It's the whole damn Cylon fleet."

"They were probably waiting for us or the Goa'uld to win so they could swoop in and finish off whoever survived," Adama mused.

A sound strategy, let your two enemies fight it out and pick off whoever was left. The Goa'uld were finished, there was no doubt about that, they had no chance of recovering after the _Prometheus_ rammed Anubis' flagship. That only left what ships the Union bad left to face the Cylon fleet including what he assumed to be some kind of Cylon space station. A mobile homeworld maybe?

"They're heading for the planet," Tigh reported as the images on the holo-table projected a course. "The toasters probably want whatever the Terrans are after down there."

"Then that means we can't let them have it," Adama reasoned. "Give me fleet-wide."

"...You're on," Tigh said after getting a nod from the comm officer on duty.

"This Admiral Adama of the Battlestar _Galactica_ , I am assuming command of the fleet," he spoke clearly into the comm. "All ships are to jump to the following coordinates and hold position. Defensive fire only, I don't want a single Cylon ship to reach the surface."

One after the other acknowledgement lights flickered on the holo-table as his eyes turned to his nav officer who nodded before returning to his console. A moment later the _Galactica_ and every other Union ship that was still capable jumped from their positions to the space between the planet and the Cylon fleet.

"Bill, we won't last long against that many Basestars," Tigh said grimly.

"...My money is on the Terrans," Adama told him.

The Thirteenth Tribe, the long forgotten home of the human race, the ones that made all of this possible. It was they that had fought the Cylons longer than any other, it was they that had faced down the Goa'uld and the other aliens that tried to conquer others. If it wasn't for them then they would still be under the tender mercy of Loki and his Vanir allies no matter what the Quorum said. He was willing to bet that they would pull something else out of their hats to turn the tide once more.

Until then he would hold the line...

"All ships fire at will," Adama gave the order.

They would all hold the line...

So say we all...

* * *

The fighting in the temple itself had died down as the lingering honour guards in the are were gunned down by the Oprican assault squads. Watching how they moved from room to room, fast and quick had even Major Carter struggling to keep up. Daniel was lagging behind a bit however it was Colonel O'Neill that was a surprise. He was at the head of the battle, forgoing any weapons he instead was throwing the Jaffa around like rag dolls using nothing but his mind. She'd seen Cassandra and other Hankans do something similar using their telekinesis but there was a difference between floating a chair a meter off the ground and collapsing a corridor on a pair of Jaffa.

Clearly the Ancient Repository has done more than just download knowledge into Jack's head. Plasma blasts from the Jaffa staffs and cannons almost seemed to be absorbed by Jack's hands, a faint barrier covering his body like some kind of energy shield. He was fast too, capable of running at she would guess about twenty miles per hour in short controlled bursts. The Jaffa never stood a chance...

Was this what humanity's next stage in evolution looked like? Eventually they reached a ruined stone wall with writing on it and Jack quickly turned the three wheels on it, opening the wall up to reveal a chamber just beyond it. He moved over to the table-like altar in the center of the room and pressed down on various sections of not.

"Jack, what is this?" Daniel asked the question.

There was no reply, not that he expected one at this point. Jack was already too far gone to speak in Ancient Latin never mind English. His mind was already being torn apart by the large amount of knowledge in his head. They'd read the reports from the original Repository and what happened after. He was dying...

 **"Stop,"** a loud booming voice echoed from the entrance to the chamber. Sam raised his rifle at the one who spoke only to find a floating mass of pure darkness, the Oprican assault squad they had left outside either dead or unconscious. **"The power of the Ancients is mine."**

In response Jack pressed down on one last section of the table and walked forward. Pure golden energy wrapped around his hands as he pushed forward, throwing it right at the mass of darkness. Anubis' form screeched in pain and rage, a testament to the human's actions. The half-ascended Goa'uld roared back as darkness lashed back, pushing Jack to his knees. He couldn't win, he knew that, not like this, but he didn't need to. He just needed to hold the monster off...

High above them the top of the mountain retracted to reveal a large oval-shaped device of some kind surging with a hazy blue energy. It pulsed once and a wave of energy was sent outwards. Within moments the energy wave reached orbit and washed over the warring fleets above the planet. While the Union ships were unaffected by it, the Cylon vessels weren't so lucky. The purely Replicator Basestars shattered into millions of blocks along with any other Cylon in the area. Even the Cylon planetoid known as the Colony didn't survive, seemingly falling to pieces.

Jack didn't know any of this however, he was to busy trying stay alive just another few seconds. The terraforming device should have worked if the Ancient knowledge stuck in his head was right. All that mattered now was dealing with Anubis, something that was easier said than done. He was at his limit and he knew it. For a moment he knew that he was going to die there and then.

Charlie...

No...

He refused...

Spurned on by the image, that echo, his mind returned to him in an instant and his world went white as the Ancient knowledge overloaded his senses. He pushed onwards, drawing ever closer to the ascension that he knew at his core was within his grasp and then shunted it all at the creature that had once been a Goa'uld. Anubis screeched as the light overwhelmed him and he seemed to materialise into the physical form of a Goa'uld symbiote. Jack himself had shifted into a hazy white light for an instant before re-materialising unconscious on the floor sans clothes. The symbiote, Anubis, tried to launch itself at him only to be blown to pieces by a round from where Daniel stood, his rifle in his hands.

Silence fell in the chamber...

The Battle of Dakara was over...


	19. Epilogue

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate or Battlestar Galactica: 2003.

A Different Path Taken

Chapter19: Epilogue

 **September 2004  
Higher Plains** **  
Avalon  
Diner** **  
**

The diner was busier than normal today when Janus entered, sidestepping an angry pair of his former colleagues. Raising an eyebrow as they passed, he instead opted to ignore them and head over to the counter where his wife was waiting for him. She was as beautiful as she was the day they had met all those centuries ago. Doctor Elizabeth Weir sat on the stood at the counter reading over the newspaper in hands as she waited patiently for the waitress to bring her the pancakes she had ordered. Even as he approached he could tell she was trying her hardest not to burst out in cheer as she reread the headline for the umpteenth time this morning.

 _Avalon Galactic War Over_

"Interesting read?" Janus asked her as he sat down on another stool.

"Oh you know how it is," Elizabeth reasoned as she handed him the newspaper. "It seems everything has come full circle."

Centuries ago she had accidentally traveled back in time while trying to escape from a flooding Atlantis mere minutes after arriving in the underwater city-ship. After traveling ten thousand years into the passed she was rescued by a very much living Lanteans and discovered that they were in the midst of a war against a race called the Wraith. A few days later the Lantean Council ordered that the remaining Lanteans evacuate through the Stargate to Earth and abandon the galaxy to the Wraith.

Once back on Earth the two of them had started traveling together through the Stargate in Janus' Gateship, helping people whenever they could hoping to atone for leaving the inhabitants of the Pegasus galaxy the mercy of the Wraith. Eventually Janus installed the Gateship with a time machine like the one he had originally built and they thought that they could make a better future with it.

They succeeded...

Mostly...

Worlds like Velona turned out rather well after they had intervened against the Goa'uld however there were setbacks, the most prominent being the attack on Earth by the Cylons. In the original timeline the Cylons never left Andromeda and the end result was the destruction of the Twelve Colonies with the survivors fleeing to Earth. When they had covertly entered a program into the Cylon consensus the result was them leaving the Colonials alone and pursuing their own destiny. They hadn't expected the Cylons to splinter into factions and for the war to take place.

After they both ascended to the Higher Plains they still kept track of what was happening. The timeline was different now and the future wasn't written yet. Even so, some things remained the same. Anubis meeting head end was something Elizabeth had personally been working towards after he had tricked pour Oma into ascending him. It was a testament to Elizabeth's negotiating skills that she had been able to convince the Others into setting conditions on Anubis' descent back to the Lower Plains.

They wanted to punish Oma for her mistake but Elizabeth talked them into a corner. Anubis was sent back half way however if he was dealt with by someone from the Lower Plains then they wouldn't intervene like they would if Elizabeth herself tried to. Many of the Others were angry at what happened when they realised that a half ascended Jack O'Neill had dispatched the rogue System Lord.

"Your pancakes," Oma said she walked over and placed a plate down in front of the seated woman. "On the house."

"Thank you," Elizabeth smiled back.

"You do know the Others are going to be mad about this for awhile, yes?" Janus mused with a sigh.

"Give them a couple of centuries," Elizabeth responded. "They'll get over it."

 **September 2004  
** **Uncharted System  
Deep Space  
CIC** **  
**

A flash of light signified the arrival of the Battlestar _Valkyrie_ and her support ships. They drifted slightly, cruising through the empty space in the middle of the system. Vipers and Raptors launched to secure the area followed by a single Stealthstar. It had taken awhile but they had finally tracked Loki's subspace wake to this star system within the Triangulum Galaxy.

Idly Commander Lee Adama wished his father hadn't been recalled and was here with him. He should have here for this but instead the Admiralty had ordered the bulk of the Colonials fleet to Dakara in the Milky Way. Subspace chatter relayed from the beacon they had dropped in the void had let them know what had happened. Apparently the Goa'uld Empire was no more, the loyalist Jaffa having rebelled against their Masters and formed the Free Jaffa Nation.

The Cylons were in full retreat and wouldn't last the month thanks to the new Asgard-designed anti-Replicator weapons based off of what the newly promoted Brigadier General Jack O'Neill had done to what was being called the Dakara Superweapon. The Stargate Union fleet was days away from hitting the Cylon homeworld and with it taken out the war would effectively be over.

That left Loki...

"Talk to me Starbuck?" Lee spoke into the comm. "What do you see?"

Aboard the Stealthstar-II otherwise known as the Blackbird, Captain Kara Thrace jumped to within range of the lone contact that her sensors had picked up. Once she had gotten her bearings again she saw it, its massive shadow blocking out the light from the star it orbited. For a moment she couldn't believe her eyes, after all she knew what it looked like and to her knowledge they weren't built this big.

A mile wide...

"It's a Stargate," Kara answered. "It's a really big Stargate."

"Say again Starbuck," Lee said confused.

"It's a Stargate," Kara repeated. "And Loki's trail leads right to it."

 **Author's Notes**

I actually really enjoyed writing this but the final battle was a bit of a pain. As you can see this reality diverged from canon when Doctor Weir travelled back in time to the Lantean-Wraith War and headed back to the Milky Way with Janus. She was there with him when he built his second time machine and together they travelled, trying to do as much good as they could though admittedly there were some setbacks-Cylons attack on Earth-but in the end everything came full circle and here we are. As for Loki, I actually have plans for him and the 'Supergate' his trail leads too. I will continue this someday but it depends on however the rest of this year goes for me. I hope you all enjoyed it and please review.

See Ya Later...


End file.
